uj^i^-l^rn^ 


TO  THE   MEMORY   OF 

MY  BELOVED  AND   HIGH-MINDED   FATHER 
HENRY  VILLARD 


2IS054 


PREFACE 

"THERE  never  was  more  need  for  a  good  life  of  any  man 
than  there  was  for  one  of  John  Brown,"  wrote  Charles  Eliot 
Norton  in  March,  1860,  in  expressing  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
his  dissatisfaction  with  the  first  biography  of  the  leader  of 
the  attack  upon  Harper's  Ferry.  Twenty-six  years  later,  in 
the  same  publication,  Mr.  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  wrote  that  "so 
grand  a  subject  cannot  fail  to  inspire  a  writer  able  to  do  jus 
tice  to  the  theme;  and  when  such  an  one  draws  Brown,  he 
will  produce  one  of  the  most  attractive  books  in  the  lan 
guage.  But  meantime  the  ill-starred  'martyr'  suffers  a  pro 
longation  of  martyrdom,  standing  like  another  St.  Sebastian 
to  be  riddled  with  the  odious  arrows  of  fulsome  panegyrists." 
Since  1886  there  have  appeared  five  other  lives  of  Brown,  the 
most  important  being  that  of  Richard  J.  Hinton,  who  in  his 
preface  gloried  in  holding  a  brief  for  Brown  and  his  men. 

The  present  volume  is  inspired  by  no  such  purpose,  but  is 
due  to  a  belief  that  fifty  years  after  the  Harper's  Ferry  tragedy, 
the  time  is  ripe  for  a  study  of  John  Brown,  free  from  bias, 
from  the  errors  in  taste  and  fact  of  the  mere  panegyrist,  and 
from  the  blind  prejudice  of  those  who  can  see  in  John  Brown 
nothing  but  a  criminal.  The  pages  that  follow  were  written 
to  detract  from  or  champion  no  man  or  set  of  men,  but  to  put 
forth  the  essential  truths  of  history  as  far  as  ascertainable, 
and  to  judge  Brown,  his  followers  and  associates  in  the  light 
thereof.  How  successful  this  attempt  has  been  is  for  the 
reader  to  judge.  That  this  volume  in  nowise  approaches  the 
attractiveness  which  Mr.  Morse  looked  for,  the  author  fully 
understands.  On  the  other  hand,  no  stone  has  been  left  un 
turned  to  make  accurate  the  smallest  detail ;  the  original  docu- 
ments,  contemporary  letters  and  living  witnesses  have  been 
examined  in  every  quarter  of  the  United  States.  Materials 
never  before  utilized  have  been  drawn  upon,  and  others  dis 
covered  whose  existence  has  heretofore  been  unknown.  Wher 
ever  sources  have  been  quoted,  they  have  been  cited  verbatim 
et  literatim,  the  effort  being  to  reproduce  exactly  spelling, 


viii  PREFACE 

capitalization  and  punctuation,  particularly  in  John  Brown's 
own  letters,  which  have  suffered  hitherto  from  free-hand 
editing.  If  at  times,  particularly  in  dealing  with  the  Kansas 
period  of  John  Brown's  life,  it  may  seem  as  if  there  were  a 
superfluity  of  detail,  the  explanation  is  that  already  a  hun 
dred  myths  have  attached  themselves  to  John  Brown's  name 
which  often  hinge  upon  a  date,  or  the  possibility  of  his  pre 
sence  at  a  given  place  at  a  given  hour.  Over  some  of  them  have 
raged  long  and  bitter  controversies  which  give  little  evidence 
of  the  softening  effects  of  time. 

So  complex  a  character  as  John  Brown's  is  not  to  be  dis 
missed  by  merely  likening  him  to  the  Hebrew  prophets  or  to 
a  Cromwellian  Roundhead,  though  both  parallels  are  not 
inapt;  and  the  historian's  task  is  made  heavier  since  nearly 
all  characterizations  of  the  man  have  been  at  one  extreme  or 
another.  But  there  is,  after  all,  no  personality  so  complex  that 
it  cannot  be  tested  by  accepted  ethical  standards.  To  do  this 
sincerely,  to  pass  a  deliberate  and  accurate  historical  judg 
ment,  to  bestow  praise  and  blame  without  favor  or  sectional 
partisanship,  has  been  the  author's  endeavor. 

Tlis  efforts  have  been  generously  aided  by  the  friends,  rela 
tives  and  associates  of  John  Brown,  whenever  approached, 
and  by  many  others  who  pay  tribute,  by  their  deep  interest, 
to  the  vital  force  of  John  Brown's  story.  It  would  be  impos 
sible  to  mention  all  here.  But  to  Salmon  Brown  and  Henry 
Thompson  is  due  the  writer's  ability  to  record  for  the  first 
time  the  exact  facts  as  to  the  happenings  on  the  Pottawatomie, 
and  the  author  is  also  particularly  indebted  to  Jason  Brown, 
Miss  Sarah  Brown,  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams,  and  Mrs. 
John  Brown,  Jr.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  F.  B.  San- 
born,  Horace  White,  George  B.  Gill,  Luke  F.  Parsons,  Mrs. 
Emma  Wattles  Morse,  Mrs.  Rebecca  Spring,  Jennie  Dunbar 
(Mrs.  Lee  Garcelon)  and  R.  G.  Elliott,  of  Lawrence,  are  a  few 
of  the  survivors  of  John  Brown's  time  who  have  aided  by 
counsel  or  reminiscence.  Special  thanks  are  due  to  George 
W.  Martin,  Miss  Adams  and  Miss  Clara  Francis,  of  the  Kan 
sas  Historical  Society,  for  valuable  assistance,  as  well  as  to 
the  Historical  Department  of  Iowa,  the  Western  Reserve 
Historical  Society,  the  Department  of  Archives  and  History 
of  the  Virginia  State  Library,  the  Pennsylvania  and  Massa- 


PREFACE  ix 

chusetts  Historical  Societies,  and  to  Louis  A.  Reese,  lately  of 
Brown  University,  who  generously  placed  at  the  author's 
disposal  the  manuscript  of  his  admirable  work  on  "The  Ad 
mission  of  Kansas  as  a  State."  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark,  of  Berea, 
Kentucky,  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  of  Kalamazoo,  Miss  Leah  Talia- 
ferro,  of  Gloucester  County,  Virginia,  Miss  Mary  E.  Thomp 
son,  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger,  Mrs.  J.  B.  Remington,  of 
Osawatomie,  Kansas,  Dr.  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  the  family  of  the 
late  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  Dr.  Frederick  C.  Waite,  of  Western 
Reserve  University,  Dr.  Henry  A.  Stevens,  of  Boston,  Cleon 
Moore,  of  Charlestown,  West  Virginia,  William  E.  Connel- 
ley,  of  Topeka,  Kansas,  and  Edwin  Tatham,  of  New  York, 
have  placed  the  author  under  special  obligations  here  grate 
fully  acknowledged. 

Dr.  Thomas  Feathers tonhaugh,  of  Washington,  has  been 
most  generous  in  giving  the  author  free  access  to  his  rich 
collections  of  books,  pamphlets  and  photographs,  and  they 
have  been  largely  drawn  upon.  The  author  also  gladly  records 
his  lasting  indebtedness  to  Miss  Katherine  Mayo,  whose  jour 
neys  in  search  of  material  for  his  use  have  covered  a  period  of 
more  than  two  years  and  many  thousands  of  miles.  But  for 
her  judgment,  her  tact  and  skill,  and  her  enthusiasm  for  the 
work,  it  could  hardly  have  approached  its  present  compre 
hensiveness.  Finally,  without  the  approval,  generous  aid  and 
encouragement  of  his  uncle,  Francis  Jackson  Garrison,  of 
Boston,  the  author  could  not  have  undertaken  or  completed 
this  book. 

NEW  YORK,  August  i,  1910. 


CONTENTS 


i. 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN i 

.'    II.   "His  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT" 42 

HI.   IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD 79 

IV.  THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS 112 

V.   MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE 148 

VI.  CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK     .    .    ...    .    .    .189 

VII.  THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD 225 

'VIII.   NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS 267 

IX.  A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT 310 

X.  SHUBEL  MORGAN,  WARDEN  OF  THE  MARCHES    .     .     .  346 

XI.  THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY 391  *\ 

XII.  HIGH  TREASON  IN  VIRGINIA 426 

XIII.  GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW 467 

XIV.  BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED 511 

XV.  YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE 558 

NOTES 591 

APPENDIX 

A.  "  Sambo's  Mistakes,"  by  John  Brown 659 

B.  John  Brown's  Covenant  for  the  Enlistment  of  his  Volunteer- 

Regular  Company,  August,  1856 66* 

C.  John  Brown's  Requisition  upon  the  National  Kansas  Com 

mittee,  for  an  outfit  for  his  proposed  Company,  January, 

1857 664 

D.  John  Brown's  Peace  Agreement 665 

E.  Shubel  Morgan's  Company         666 

F.  John  Brown's  Wills 667 

G.  John  Avis's  Affidavit  as  to  his  Association  with  John  Brown  670 
H.    A  Chronology  of  John  Brown's  Movements  from  his  depar- 

jk.  ture  for  Kansas,  August  13,  1855,  to  his  death,  December 

2,  1859 672 

I.  John  Brown's  Men  at  Arms 678 


xii  CONTENTS 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I.  Manuscript  Collections 689 

l    II.  Biographies 689 

III.  Magazine  and  Other  Articles §  .   590 

IV.  Authorities  on  the  Kansas  Period 694 

V.  Books,  Pamphlets  and  Periodicals  relating  particularly  to  the  Har-     t. 

per's  Ferry  Raid 697 

VI.   Reports  of  Important  Meetings  dealing  with  the  Raid  and  Execu 
tion        700 

VII.    Important  Speeches  and  Addresses  on  John  Brown,  as  separately 

published 701 

VIII.   Some  Typical  Sermons 702 

IX.   Biographies,  Autobiographies  and  Reminiscences  of  Correlated  or 

Important  Persons 703 

X.   Local  and  General  Histories  with  Special  References  to  John  Brown 

and  his  Men 707 

INDEX 711 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOHN  BROWN Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  by  Nahunt  B.  Onthank  in  the  Boston  Athenceum.  This 
was  based  on  a  photograph  from  life  by  J.  W.  Black,  of  Boston,  in  May, 
1859,  and  the  artist  had  the  benefit  of  the  criticisms  and  suggestions  of  Mrs. 
Brown,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  other  members  of  the  family.  Onthank  made 
two  paintings,  one  of  which  was  purchased  by  Thaddeus  Hyatt  and  presented 
by  him  to  the  People  of  Hayti,  through  President  Geffrard.  The  second  was 
purchased  by  subscription  and  given  to  the  Athenceum. 

OWEN  BROWN,  FATHER  OF  JOHN  BROWN 14 

From  a  photograph 

FOUR  OF  JOHN  BROWN'S  SONS  IN  LATER  YEARS:  JOHN  BROWN, 
JR.,  JASON,  SALMON  AND  OWEN  BROWN 166 

From  photographs. 

THE  OSAWATOMIE  BATTLEFIELD,  LOOKING  TOWARD  THE  RIVER  244 

From  a  photograph. 

PART  OF  THE  BLACK  JACK  BATTLEFIELD 244 

From  a  photograph. 

MAIN  STREET  OF  TABOR,  IOWA 268 

From  a  photograph. 

THE  PUBLIC  SQUARE  AT  TABOR 268 

From  a  photograph. 

JOHN  BROWN 282 

Photogravure  from  a  daguerreotype  (1857?)  kindly  loaned  by  Mrs.  Charles 
Fairchild,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

HOUSE  OF  REV.  JOHN  TODD,  TABOR,  IOWA 316 

Where  John  Brown  stored  his  guns  and  ammunition. 
From  a  photograph. 

THE  SCHOOL-HOUSE  AT  SPRINGDALE 316 

Where  the  Mock  Legislature  met. 
From  a  photograph. 

JOHN  BROWN 338 

Photogravure  from  a  photograph  taken  (probably  in  June,  1858)  by  J.  J. 
Hawes,  of  Boston 

JOHN  BROWN'S  NORTHERN  SUPPORTERS:  GEORGE  L.  STEARNS, 
GERRIT  SMITH,  FRANK  B.  SANBORN,  THOMAS  WENTWORTH 
HIGGINSON,  THEODORE  PARKER,  SAMUEL  G.  HOWE  .  .  .396 

From  photographs. 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  HOUSE  AT  KENNEDY  FARM,  MARYLAND  .    .    .    .    .    .404 

From  a  woodcut. 

THE  CABIN  ACROSS  THE  ROAD  FROM  THE  FARMHOUSE     .    .    .  404 

From  a  woodcut. 

SCHOOL-HOUSE  GUARDED  BY  JOHN  E.  COOK 404 

From  a  woodcut. 

MAP  OF  THE  HARPER'S  FERRY  REGION 4I4 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  HARPER'S  FERRY,  WEST  VIRGINIA.     .     .  428 

From  a  photograph  kindly  furnished  by  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad. 

HARPER'S  FERRY:  THE  FIGHTING  AT  THE  ENGINE-HOUSE     .  444 

From  a  woodcut. 

VICTIMS  OF  HARPER'S  FERRY:  JOHN  H.  KAGI,  AARON  D.  STE-" 
,    YENS,  OLIVER  BROWN  AND  WATSON  BROWN 448 

From  photographs. 

THE  STORMING  OF  THE  ENGINE-HOUSE 452 

From  a  woodcut. 

THE  PRISON,  GUARD-HOUSE,  AND  COURT-HOUSE,  CHARLES- 
TOWN,  WEST  VIRGINIA 486 

From  a  woodcut. 

ONE  OF  JOHN  BROWN'S  LETTERS  FROM  PRISON 542 

Fac- simile  from  the  original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Theodore  P.  Adams,  of 
Plymouth,  Mass. 

JOHN  BROWN'S  LAST  PROPHECY 554 

Fac- simile  from  the  original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Frank  G.  Logan,  of 
Chicago. 

THE  NORTH  ELBA  FARMHOUSE 562 

From  a  photograph. 

JOHN  BROWN'S  GRAVE 562 

From  a  photograph. 

NOTE. — The  Osawatomie  and  Black  Jack  battlefields,  the  Todd  house  at 
Tabor,  and  school-house  at  Springdale,  were  photographed  by  the  author  in 
1908;  the  views  of  Kennedy  Farm,  of  the  fighting  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  of  the 
Charlestown  Court-House  and  Prison  are  reproduced  from  woodcuts  in  Frank 
Leslie's  Illustrated  Paper  (New  York)  for  October  and  November,  1859;  the  por 
traits  of  Owen  Brown  (father  of  John  Brown),  Kagi,  Stevens,  Oliver  and  Watson 
Brown,  and  the  views  of  the  Farmhouse  and  Grave  at  North  Elba,  are  from 
photographs  kindly  lent  by  Dr.  Thomas  Featherstonhaugh,  of  Washington,  D.  C. ; 
the  portraits  of  John  Brown,  Jr..  and  of  Salmon  and  Owen  Brown  are  from  photo 
graphs  belonging  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Put-in  Bay,  Ohio;  that  of  Jason  Brown, 
from  a  photograph  made  in  1908,  for  Mr.  Earl  E.  Martin,  editor  of  the  Cleve 
land  Press. 


JOHN  BROWN 


All  through  the  conflict,  up  and  down 
Marched  Uncle  Tom  and  Old  John  Brown, 

One  ghost,  one  form  ideal; 
And  which  was  false  and  which  was  true, 
And  which  was  mightier  of  the  two, 
The  wisest  sibyl  never  knew, 

For  both  alike  were  real. 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 


JOHN  BROWN 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN 

RED  ROCK,  IOWA  isth  July,  1857 

MR.  HENRY  L.  STEARNS. 

MY  DEAR  YOUNG  FRIEND  I  have  not  forgotten  my  pro 
mise  to  write  you ;  but  my  constant  care,  &  anxiety :  have 
obliged  me  to  put  it  off  a  long  time.  I  do  not  flatter  myself 
that  I  can  write  anything  that  will  very  much  interest  you : 
but  have  concluded  to  send  you  a  short  story  of  a  certain  boy 
of  my  acquaintance :  &  for  convenience  &  shortness  of  name, 
I  will  call  him  John.  This  story  will  be  mainly  a  naration  of 
follies  and  errors ;  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  you  may  avoid;  but 
there  is  one  thing  connected  with  it,  which  will  be  calculated 
to  encourage  any  young  person  to  persevereing  effort ;  &  that 
is  the  degree  of  success  in  accomplishing  his  objects  which  to 
a  great  extent  marked  the  course  of  this  boy  throughout  my 
entire  acquaintance  with  him ;  notwithstanding  his  moderate 
capacity ;  &  still  more  moderate  acquirements. 

John  was  born  May  Qth,  1800,  at  Torrington,  Litchfield  Co. 
Connecticut ;  of  poor  but  respectable  parents :  a  decendant  on 
the  side  of  his  Father  of  one  of  the  company  of  the  Mayflower 
who  landed  at  Plymouth  1620.  His  mother  was  decended 
from  a  man  who  came  at  an  early  period  to  New  England  from 
Amsterdam,  in  Holland.  Both  his  Fathers  and  his  Mothers 
Fathers  served  in  the  war  of  the  revolution :  His  Father's 
Father ;  died  in  a  barn  at  New  York  while  in  the  service,  in 
1776. 

I  cannot  tell  you  of  anything  in  the  first  Four  years  of 
John's  life  worth  mentioning  save  that  at  that  early  age  he 
was  tempted  by  Three  large  Brass  Pins  belonging  to  a  girl  who 
lived  in  the  family  &  stole  them.  In  this  he  was  detected  by 
his  Mother ;  &  after  having  a  full  day  to  think  of  the  wrong ; 


2  JOHN  BROWN 

received  from  her  a  thorough  whipping.  When  he  was  Five 
years  old  his  Father  moved  to  Ohio ;  then  a  wilderness  filled 
with  wild  beasts,  &  Indians.  During  the  long  journey  which 
was  performed  in  part  or  mostly  with  an  Oxteam;  he  was 
called  on  by  turns  to  assist  a  boy  Five  years  older  (who  had 
been  adopted  by  his  Father  &  Mother)  &  learned  to  think  he 
could  accomplish  smart  things  in  driving  the  Cows ;  &  riding 
the  horses.  Sometimes  he  met  with  Rattle  Snakes  which  were 
very  large ;  &  which  some  of  the  company  generally  managed 
to  kill.  After  getting  to  Ohio  in  1805  he  was  for  some  time 
rather  afraid  of  the  Indians,  &  of  their  Rifles ;  but  this  soon 
wore  off :  &  he  used  to  hang  about  them  quite  as  much  as  was 
consistent  with  good  manners ;  &  learned  a  trifle  of  their  talk. 
His  father  learned  to  dress  Deer  Skins,  &  at  6  years  old  John 
was  installed  a  young  Buck  Skin.  He  was  perhaps  rather 
observing  as  he  ever  after  remembered  the  entire  process  of 
Deer  Skin  dressing;  so  that  he  could  at  any  time  dress  his 
own  leather  such  as  Squirel,  Raccoon,  Cat,  Wolf  or  Dog  Skins; 
and  also  learned  to  make  Whip  Lashes :  which  brought  him 
some  change  at  times ;  &  was  of  considerable  service  in  many 
ways.  At  Six  years  old  John  began  to  be  quite  a  rambler  in  the 
wild  new  country  finding  birds  and  Squirrels  and  sometimes  a 
wild  Turkeys  nest.  But  about  this  period  he  was  placed  in  the 
School  of  adversity;  which  my  young  friend  was  a  most  neces 
sary  part  of  his  early  training.  You  may  laugh  when  you  come 
to  read  about  it ;  but  these  were  sore  trials  to  John :  whose 
earthly  treasures  were  very  few,  &  small.  These  were  the  be 
ginning  of  a  severe  but  much  needed  course  of  dicipline  which 
he  afterwards  was  to  pass  through ;  &  which  it  is  to  be  hoped 
has  learned  him  before  this  time  that  the  Heavenly  Father 
sees  it  best  to  take  all  the  little  things  out  of  his  hands  which 
he  has  ever  placed  in  them.  When  John  was  in  his  Sixth  year 
a  poor  Indian  boy  gave  him  a  Yellow  Marble  the  first  he  had 
ever  seen.  This  he  thought  a  great  deal  of ;  &  kept  it  a  good 
while ;  but  at  last  he  lost  it  beyond  recovery.  //  took  years  to 
heal  the  wound  &  I  think  he  cried  at  times  about  it.  About 
Five  months  after  this  he  caught  a  young  Squirel  tearing  off 
his  tail  in  doing  it ;  &  getting  severely  bitten  at  the  same  time 
himself.  He  however  held  on  to  the  little  bob  tail  Squirrel ;  & 
finally  got  him  perfectly  tamed,  so  that  he  almost  idolized  his 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  3 

pet.  This  too  he  lost;  by  its  wandering  away;  or  by  getting 
killed  ;  &  for  a  year  or  two  John  was  in  mourning;  and  looking 
at  all  the  Squirrels  he  could  see  to  try  &  discover  Bobtail,  if 
possible.  I  must  not  neglect  to  tell  you  of  a  verry  bad  &  foolish 
habbit  to  which  John  was  somewhat  addicted.  I  mean  telling 
lies ;  generally  to  screen  himself  from  blame ;  or  from  punish 
ment.  He  could  not  well  endure  to  be  reproached ;  &  I  now 
think  had  he  been  oftener  encouraged  to  be  entirely  frank; 
by  making  frankness  a  kind  of  atonement  for  some  of  his  faults ; 
he  would  not  have  been  so  often  guilty  in  after  life  of  this 
fault ;  nor  have  been  obliged  to  struggle  so  long  with  so  mean 
a  habit. 

John  was  never  quarrelsome  ;  but  was  excessively  fond  of  the 
hardest  &  roughest  kind  of  plays ;  &  could  never  get  enough  [of] 
them.  Indeed  when  for  a  short  time  he  was  sometimes  sent 
to  School  the  opportunity  it  afforded  to  wrestle,  &  Snow  ball 
&  run  &  jump  &  knock  off  old  seedy  Wool  hats ;  offered  to 
him  almost  the  only  compensation  for  the  confinement,  &  re 
straints  of  school.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  with  such  a  feeling 
&  but  little  chance  of  going  to  school  at  all :  he  did  not  become 
much  of  a  schollar.  He  would  always  choose  to  stay  at  home 
&  work  hard  rather  than  be  sent  to  school;  &  during  the 
Warm  season  might  generally  be  seen  barefooted  &  bareheaded : 
with  Buck  skin  Breeches  suspended  often  with  one  leather 
strap  over  his  shoulder  but  sometimes  with  Two.  To  be  sent 
off  through  the  wilderness  alone  to  very  considerable  distances 
was  particularly  his  delight ;  &  in  this  he  was  often  indulged 
so  that  by  the  time  he  was  Twelve  years  old  he  was  sent  off 
more  than  a  Hundred  Miles  with  companies  of  cattle ;  &  he 
would  have  thought  his  character  much  injured  had  he  been 
obliged  to  be  helped  in  any  such  job.  This  was  a  boyish  kind 
of  feeling  but  characteristic  however.  At  Eight  years  old, 
John  was  left  a  Motherless  boy  which  loss  was  complete  £ 
permanent  for  notwithstanding  his  Father  again  married  to 
a  sensible,  inteligent,  and  on  many  accounts  a  very  estimable 
woman ;  yet  he  never  adopted  her  in  feeling;  but  continued 
to  pine  after  his  own  Mother  for  years.  This  opperated  very 
unfavorably  uppon  him ;  as  he  was  both  naturally  fond  of 
females;  &,  withall,  extremely  diffident;  &  deprived  him  of  a 
suitable  connecting  link  between  the  different  sexes ;  the  want 


4  JOHN  BROWN 

of  which  might  under  some  circumstances,  have  proved  his 
ruin.  When  the  war  broke  out  with  England:  his  Father  soon 
commenced  furnishing  the  troops  with  beef  cattle,  the  collect 
ing  &  driving  of  which  afforded  him  some  opportunity  for  the 
chase  (on  foot)  of  wild  steers  &  other  cattle  through  the  woods. 
During  this  war  he  had  some  chance  to  form  his  own  boyish 
judgment  of  men  &  measures :  &  to  become  somewhat  famil 
iarly  acquainted  with  some  who  have  figured  before  the  coun 
try  since  that  time.  The  effect  of  what  he  saw  during  the 
war  was  to  so  far  disgust  him  with  Military  affairs  that  he 
would  neither  train,  or  drill;  but  paid  fines;  &  got  along  like  a 
Quaker  untill  his  age  finally  has  cleared  him  of  Military  duty. 
During  the  war  with  England  a  circumstance  occurred  that 
in  the  end  made  him  a  most  determined  Abolitionist:  &  led  him 
to  declare,  or  Swear :  Eternal  war  with  Slavery.  He  was  stay 
ing  for  a  short  time  with  a  very  gentlemanly  landlord  since  a 
United  States  Marshall  who  held  a  slave  boy  near  his  own  age 
very  active,  inteligent,  and  good  feeling;  &  to  whom  John 
was  under  considerable  obligation  for  numerous  little  acts  of 
kindness.  The  Master  made  a  great  pet  of  John :  brought  him 
to  table  with  his  first  company ;  &  friends ;  called  their  atten 
tion  to  every  little  smart  thing  he  said  or  did :  &  to  the  fact  of 
his  being  more  than  a  hundred  miles  from  home  with  a  com 
pany  of  cattle  alone ;  while  the  negro  boy  (who  was  fully  if  not 
more  than  his  equal)  was  badly  clothed,  poorly  fed ;  &  lodged 
in  cold  weather ;  &  beaten  before  his  eyes  with  Iron  Shovels 
or  any  other  thing  that  came  first  to  hand.  This  brought  John 
to  reflect  on  the  wretched,  hopeless  condition,  of  Fatherless 
&  Motherless  slave  children:  for  such  children  have  neither 
Fathers  or  Mothers  to  protect  &  provide  for  them.  He  some 
times  would  raise  the  question  is  God  their  Father  ?  At  the  age 
of  Ten  years,  an  old  friend  induced  him  to  read  a  little  history, 
&  offered  him  the  free  use  of  a  good  library;  by;  which  he 
acquired  some  taste  for  reading :  which  formed  the  principle 
part  of  his  early  education :  £  diverted  him  in  a  great  measure 
from  bad  company.  He  by  this  means  grew  to  be  verry  fond  of 
the  company  &  conversation  of  old  &  inteligent  persons.  He 
never  attempted  to  dance  in  his  life ;  nor  did  he  ever  learn  to 
know  one  of  a  pack  of  Cards  from  another.  He  learned  nothing 
of  Grammer ;  nor  did  he  get  at  school  so  much  knowledge  of 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  5 

comm[on]  Arithmetic  as  the  Four  ground  rules.  This  will  give 
you  some  general  idea  of  the  first  Fifteen  years  of  his  life; 
during  which  time  he  became  very  strong  &  large  of  his  age  & 
ambitious  to  perform  the  full  labour  of  a  man ;  at  almost  any 
kind  of  hard  work.  By  reading  the  lives  of  great,  wise  &  good 
men  their  sayings,  and  writings ;  he  grew  to  a  dislike  of  vain  & 
frivolous  conversation  &  persons;  &  was  often  greatly  obliged 
by  the  kind  manner  in  which  older  &  more  inteligent  persons 
treated  him  at  their  houses:  &  in  conversation;  which  was 
a  great  relief  on  account  of  his  extreme  bashfulness.  He  very 
early  in  life  became  ambitious  to  excel  in  doing  anything  he 
undertook  to  perform.  This  kind  of  feeling  I  would  recom 
mend  to  all  young  persons  both  Male  &Jemale:  as  it  will  cer 
tainly  tend  to  secure  admission  to  the  company  of  the  more 
inteligent;  &  better  portion  of  every  community.  By  all 
means  endeavour  to  excel  in  some  laudable  pursuit.  I  had 
like  to  have  forgotten  to  tell  you  of  one  of  John's  misfortunes 
which  set  rather  hard  on  him  while  a  young  boy.  He  had  by 
some  means  perhaps  by  gift  of  his  Father  become  the  owner 
of  a  little  Ewe  Lamb  which  did  finely  till  it  was  about  Two 
Thirds  grown;  &  then  sickened  and  died.  This  brought  an 
other  protracted  mourning  season :  not  that  he  felt  the  pecun 
iary  loss  so  heavily :  for  that  was  never  his  disposition ;  but  so 
strong  &  earnest  were  his  attachments.  John  had  been  taught 
from  earliest  childhood  to  "fear  God  &  keep  his  command 
ments  ;"  &  though  quite  skeptical  he  had  always  by  turns  felt 
much  serious  doubt  as  to  his  future  well  being ;  &  about  this 
time  became  to  some  extent  a  convert  to  Christianity  &  ever 
after  a  firm  believer  in  the  divine  authenticity  of  the  Bible. 
With  this  book  he  became  very  familiar,  &  possessed  a  most 
unusual  memory  of  its  entire  contents. 

Now  some  of  the  things  I  have  been  telling  of;  were  just  such 
as  I  would  recommend  to  you :  &  I  would  like  to  know  that  you 
had  selected  these  out ;  &  adopted  them  as  part  of  your  own 
plan  of  life ;  &  I  wish  you  to  have  some  deffinite  plan.  Many 
seem  to  have  none ;  &  others  never  to  stick  to  any  that  they  do 
form.  This  was  not  the  case  with  John.  He  followed  up  with 
tenacity  whatever  he  set  about  so  long  as  it  answered  his  gen 
eral  purpose :  &  hence  he  rarely  failed  in  some  good  degree  to 
effect  the  things  he  undertook.  This  was  so  much  the  case 


6  JOHN  BROWN 

that  he  habitually  expected  to  succeed  in  his  undertakings.  With 
this  feeling  should  be  coupled;  the  consciousness  that  our  plans 
are  right  in  themselves. 

During  the  period  I  have  named,  John  had  acquired  a  kind 
of  ownership  to  certain  animals  of  some  little  value  but  as 
he  had  come  to  understand  that  the  title  of  minors  might  be  a 
little  imperfect :  he  had  recourse  to  various  means  in  order  to 
secure  a  more  independent;  &  perfect  right  of  property.  One 
of  these  means  was  to  exchange  with  his  Father  for  some 
thing  of  far  less  value.  Another  was  by  trading  with  other  per 
sons  for  something  his  Father  had  never  owned.  Older  persons 
have  sometimes  found  difficulty  with  titles. 

From  Fifteen  to  Twenty  years  old,  he  spent  most  of  his 
time  working  at  the  Tanner  &  Currier's  trade  keeping  Bach 
elors  hall ;  &  he  officiating  as  Cook ;  &  for  most  of  the  time 
as  foreman  of  the  establishment  under  his  Father.  During 
this  period  he  found  much  trouble  with  some  of  the  bad  hab 
its  I  have  mentioned  &  with  some  that  I  have  not  told  you 
of :  his  conscience  urging  him  forward  with  great  power  in  this 
matter:  but  his  close  attention  to  business;  &  success  in  its 
management ;  together  with  the  way  he  got  along  with  a  com 
pany  of  men,  &  boys ;  made  him  quite  a  favorite  with  the  seri 
ous  &  more  inteligent  portion  of  older  persons.  This  was  so 
much  the  case ;  &  secured  for  him  so  many  little  notices  from 
those  he  esteemed ;  that  his  vanity  was  very  much  fed  by 
it :  &  he  came  forward  to  manhood  quite  full  of  self-conceit ; 
&  self-confident ;  notwithstanding  his  extreme  bashfulness.  A 
younger  brother  used  sometimes  to  remind  him  of  this:  & 
to  repeat  to  him  this  expression  which  you  may  somewhere 
find,  "A  King  against  whom  there  is  no  rising  up."  The  habit 
so  early  formed  of  being  obeyed  rendered  him  in  after  life 
too  much  disposed  to  speak  in  an  imperious  or  dictating  way. 
From  Fifteen  years  &  upward  he  felt  a  good  deal  of  anxiety 
to  learn ;  but  could  only  read  &  studdy  a  little ;  both  for  want 
of  time ;  &  on  account  of  inflammation  of  the  eyes.  He  how 
ever  managed  by  the  help  of  books  to  make  himself  tolera 
bly  well  acquainted  with  common  Arithmetic ;  &  Surveying  ; 
which  he  practiced  more  or  less  after  he  was  Twenty  years  old. 
At  a  little  past  Twenty  years  led  by  his  own  inclination  & 
prompted  also  by  his  Father,  he  married  a  remarkably  plain ; 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  7 

but  neat  industrious  &  economical  girl ;  of  excellent  character ; 
earnest  piety;  &  good  practical  common  sense;  about  one 
year  younger  than  himself.  This  woman  by  her  mild,  frank, 
&  more  than  all  else;  by  her  very  consistent  conduct ;  acquired 
&  ever  while  she  lived  maintained  a  most  powerful ;  &  good 
influence  over  him.  Her  plain  but  kind  admonitions  generally 
had  the  right  effect ;  without  arousing  his  haughty  obstinate 
temper.  John  began  early  in  life  to  discover  a  great  liking  to 
fine  Cattle,  Horses,  Sheep,  &  Swine;  &  as  soon  as  circum 
stances  would  enable  him  he  began  to  be  a  practical  Shep 
herd  :  it  being  a  calling  for  which  in  early  life  he  had  a  kind  of 
enthusiastic  longing:  together  with  the  idea  that  as  a  business 
it  bid  fair  to  afford  him  the  means  of  carrying  out  his  greatest 
or  principal  object.  I  have  now  given  you  a  kind  of  general 
idea  of  the  early  life  of  this  boy ;  &  if  I  believed  it  would  be 
worth  the  trouble ;  or  afford  much  interest  to  any  good  feeling 
person ;  I  might  be  tempted  to  tell  you  something  of  his  course 
in  after  life;  or  manhood.  I  do  not  say  that  I  will  do  it. 

You  will  discover  that  in  using  up  my  half  sheets  to  save 
paper;  I  have  written  Two  pages,  so  that  one  does  not  follow 
the  other  as  it  should.  I  have  no  time  to  write  it  over ;  &  but 
for  unavoidable  hindrances  in  traveling  I  can  hardly  say  when 
I  should  have  written  what  I  have.  With  an  honest  desire  for 
your  best  good,  I  subscribe  myself, 

Your  Friend, 

J.  BROWN. 

P.  S.  I  had  like  to  have  forgotten  to  acknowledge  your  con 
tribution  in  aid  of  the  cause  in  which  I  serve.  God  Allmighty 
bless  you;  my  son. 

J.  B. 


In  this  simple,  straightforward,  yet  remarkable  narrative  * 
John  Brown  of  Osawatomie  and  Harper's  Ferry  outlined  his 
youth  to  the  thirteen-year-old  son  of  his  benefactor,  George 
Luther  Stearns.  It  remains  the  chief  source  of  knowledge  as  to 
the  formative  period  of  one  who  for  a  brief  day  challenged  the 
attention  of  a  great  nation,  compelled  it  to  heart  searchings 
most  beneficent  in  their  results,  and  through  his  death  of  ap 
parent  ignominy  achieved  not  only  an  historical  immortality, 


8  JOHN  BROWN 

but  a  far-reaching  victory  over  forces  of  evil  against  which  he 
had  dared  and  lost  his  lifeJ^  John  Brown,  a  Puritan  in  the  aus 
terity  of  his  manner  of  living,  the  narrowness  of  his  vision  and 
the  hardships  he  underwent,  came  of  a  family  of  pioneers.  But 
he  was  not  of  those  adventurers  into  the  wilderness  who  are 
content,  after  carving  out  with  the  axe  a  little  kingdom  for 
themselves,  to  rule  peacefully  to  the  end  of  their  days.  His 
early  adventures,  his  contact  with  the  American  aborigines, 
his  boyish  experiences  with  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  armies 
in  the  field,  all  bred  up  in  him  a  restlessness  not  characteris 
tic  of  the  original  Puritans,  but  with  him  a  dominant  feature  of 
his  whole  career.  To  John  Brown  life  from  the  outset  meant 
incessant  strife,  first  against  unconquered  nature,  then  in  the 
struggle  for  a  living,  and  finally  in  that  effort  to  be  a  Samson  to 
the  pro-slavery  Philistines  in  which  his  existence  culminated. 
"I  expect  nothing  but  to  endure  hardness,"  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  an  attempt  to  enlist  him  in  the  Harper's  Ferry  enter 
prise.  It  would  have  been  surprising,  indeed,  had  he  expected 
anything  else,  for  to  nothing  else  was  he  accustomed.  From 
the  "school  of  adversity"  in  which  he  was  placed,  as  he  wrote, 
at  the  age  of  six  years,  he  graduated  only  at  his  death. 

The  picture  which  John  Brown  drew  of  his  experiences  in 
the  early  settlement  of  Ohio,  just  a  century  ago,  was  by  no 
means  over-colored.  The  American  public  is  apt  to  think  that 
pioneering  was  difficult  only  in  New  England  in  the  seven 
teenth  century,  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  in  the  eighteenth, 
and  in  the  far  West  in  the  nineteenth.  But  the  story  of  the 
settlement  of  the  Middle  West  reads  in  no  essential  differ 
ently,  if  perhaps  less  dramatically,  than  the  better  known  ex 
tensions  of  the  ever-expanding  frontier.  There  were  the  same 
hardships,  the  same  facing  of  death  by  disease  or,  at  times,  in 
ambush,  the  same  exhausting  toil,  the  same  terrifying  loneli 
ness,  the  same  never-ending  battling  against  relentless  ele 
ments.  This  struggle  for  existence  Brown's  family  shared 
with  those  fellow  emigrants  who  ventured  with  them  into  the 
Ohio  forest  primeval,  destroying  it  with  great  labor,  driving 
the  wolves,  panthers  and  bears  from  their  rude  cabin  doors, 
and  subsisting,  penuriously  enough,  on  the  wild  game  of  the 
woods  and  such  scanty  crops  as  the  squirrels,  blackbirds,  rac 
coons  and  porcupines  permitted  to  grow  to  maturity  among 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  9 

the  stumps  of  the  cleared  tracts.  As  late  as  1817  there  were 
bears  who  helped  themselves  in  this  district  of  Ohio  to  the 
settlers'  pigs,  and  in  1819,  in  a  great  hunt,  no  less  than  one 
hundred  deer  and  a  dozen  and  a  half  bears  and  wolves  were 
corralled  and  shot  down  by  the  hunters  of  four  townships  2 
around  Hudson.  These  wild  animals  of  the  forest  not  only 
supplied  meat  for  the  scantily  furnished  larders,  but  skins 
wherewith  to  make  clothing  and  caps  for  others  besides  John 
Brown.  Farms  were  bought  and  paid  for  in  hard  and  bitter 
experiences.  The  roads  were  but  a  pretence,  rough  log  bridges 
led  across  the  swamps,  and  the  only  means  of  transportation 
which  could  survive  long  were  the  roughest  sleds,  ox-carts 
and  stone-boats.  In  the  summer  of  1806,  the  year  after  John 
Brown  arrived,  there  were,  according  to  an  old  settler,3  frosts 
every  month,  "no  corn  got  ripe,  and  the  next  spring  we  had 
to  send  to  the  Ohio  river  for  seed  corn  to  plant."  This  was 
the  beginning  of  the  "school  of  adversity"  for  John  Brown, 
and  the  next  summer's  session  was  one  of  the  hardest  that  the 
pioneers  ever  stored  away  in  their  recollections.  But  not  the 
worst;  that  John  Brown  thought  the  summer  of  1817,  which 
he  described  as  a  period  "  of  extreme  scarcity  of  not  only  money, 
but  of  the  greatest  distress  for  want  of  provisions  known 
during  the  nineteenth  century."  4  He  and  three  others  were 
destitute  "between  the  seaside  and  Ohio,"  but  they  had 
learned  not  to  be  afraid  of  "spoiling  themselves  by  hard  work," 
and  they  managed  to  keep  body  and  soul  together.  Even  in 
times  of  plenty,  provisions  were  hard  to  get,  and  were  best 
purchased  by  labor  of  those  fortunate  enough  to  have  an 
abundance,  the  rate  being  three  and  a  half  pounds  of  pork  for  a 
day's  service.  Fortunately,  the  neighboring  Indians,  Senecas, 
Ottawas  and  Chippewas,  were  well  behaved  and  friendly, 
rarely  sinning,  but  often  sinned  against.  It  was  in  this  atmos^ 
phere  so  friendly  to  the  steeling  of  muscles,  the  training  of  eyes 
and  hands,  the  enduring  of  arduous  labor  and  the  cultivation  / 
of  the  primal  virtues,  that  John  Brown  grew  up  to  self-reliant^  \J 
manhood.  Under  these  conditions  was  his  character  moulded 
and  forged,  until  there  emerged  a  man  of  singular  natural  force, 
direct  of  speech,  earnest  of  purpose,  and  usually  resolute,  with 
the  frontiersman's  ability  to  shift  readily  from  one  occupation 
to  another  and  an  incurable  readiness  to  wander. 


to  JOHN  BROWN 

' '  Although  the  time  when  a  man  comes  into  the  world  and  the 
place  where  he  appears  are  in  certain  ways  important  and  may 
well  begin  his  story,"  declared  Professor  N.  S.  Shaler  in  his  all 
too  brief  autobiography,  "  the  really  weighty  question  concerns 
his  inheritances  and  the  conditions  in  which  they  were  devel 
oped.  That  he  brings  with  him  something  that  is  in  a  mea 
sure  independent  of  all  his  progenitors,  a  certain  individuality 
which  makes  him  distinct  in  essentials  from  like  beings  he 
succeeds,  is  true  —  vastly  true ;  but  the  way  he  is  to  go  is,  to 
a  great  extent,  shaped  by  those  who  sent  him  his  life."  5  The 
conditions  of  early  life  in  Ohio  were  precisely  those  for  which 
John  Brown's  inheritances  should  best  have  fitted  him.  He 
came  of  simple,  frugal,  hard-working  folk,  deeply  interested 
in  religion  and  the  church  into  which  they  sent  some  of  their 
best,  and,  above  all,  imbued  with  a  strong  love  of  liberty. 
His  father's  father,  who  died  "in  a  barn  in  New  York"  while 
a  captain  of  the  Ninth  Company,  or  Train-band  9,  in  the 
Eighteenth  Regiment  of  the  Connecticut  Colony,  likewise 
bore  the  name  of  John  Brown,  and  on  the  other  side  the 
tradition  of  arms  came  down  to  him  from  his  maternal  grand 
father.  The  Revolutionary  Captain  John  Brown  was  the  son 
and  grandson  of  men  of  the  same  name,  likewise  citizens  of 
Connecticut,  the  senior  of  whom,  born  February  4,  1694,  was 
the  son  of  Peter  Brown,  of  Windsor,  Connecticut.  Through 
this  Peter  Brown,  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie,  like  many 
another  of  his  patronymic,  believed  himself  descended  from 
Peter  Brown  of  the  goodly  Mayflower  company,  —  errone 
ously,  for  modern  genealogical  research  has  proved  that  the 
Mayflower  Peter  Brown  left  no  male  issue.8  But  the  posses 
sion  of  an  actual  Mayflower  progenitor  is  not  indispensable 
to  the  establishment  of  a  long  line  of  ancestry,  and  so  Peter 
Brown  of  Windsor,  born  in  1632,  can  surely  lay  claim  to  being 
among  the  earliest  white  colonists  on  this  continent,  —  early 
enough  at  least  to  make  it  plain  that  in  John  Brown  of  Osa- 
watomie's  veins  ran  the  blood  of  solid  middle-class  citizens, 
the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  early  colonies,  as  of  the  infant 
American  republic. 

It  is  not  related  of  any  of  the  colonial  John  Browns  that 
they  were  especially  distinguished.  When  Captain  John 
Brown,  of  the  Eighteenth  Connecticut,  gave  his  life  for  the 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  11 

independence  of  his  country,  he  left  a  wife  and  ten  children 
at  West  Simsbury,  now  Canton,  Connecticut,  and  a  posthu 
mous  son  came  into  the  world  soon  after  his  father  perished, 
the  oldest  child,  a  daughter,  being  then  about  seventeen. 
4 'The  care  and  support  of  this  family,"  wrote  his  son  Owen 
many  years  later,  "fell  mostly  on  my  mother.  The  labor 
ing  men  were  mostly  in  the  army.  She  was  one  of  the  best 
mothers ;  active  and  sensible.  She  did  all  that  could  be  ex 
pected  of  a  mother ;  yet  for  the  want  of  help  we  lost  our  crops, 
then  our  cattle,  and  so  became  poor."  In  the  "  dreadful  hard 
winter"  of  1778-79  they  were  deprived  of  nearly  all  their 
sheep,  cattle  and  hogs,  and  the  spring  found  them  in  the 
greatest  distress.  This  was  the  "school  of  adversity"  in  which 
John  Brown's  father  was  trained,  he  also  beginning  at  the  age 
of  six  the  lessons  in  hardship  which  made  of  him  a  sturdy, 
vigorous,  honest  pioneer,  and  hardened  his  body  for  its  long 
existence  of  eighty-five  years.  In  the  autobiography 7  which 
he  wrote  at  his  children's  request,  when  nearly  eighty  years 
of  age,  Owen  Brown  summed  up  his  career  in  this  sentence : 
"  My  life  has  been  of  little  worth,  mostly  filled  up  with  van 
ity."  In  this  harsh  judgment  his  neighbors  would  not  have 
concurred.  Owen  Brown  stood  well  with  everybody,  even 
with  those  who  had  no  liking  for  his  militant  son.  Yet  this 
sentence  gives  a  key  to  the  piety  which  filled  Owen's  life,  and 
explains,  too,  whence  the  son  received  his  own  strong  religious 
tendency.  In  Owen  Brown's  last  letter  to  his  son,  penned  only 
six  weeks  before  his  death,  occurs  this  wrish :  "  I  ask  all  of  you 
to  pray  more  earnestly  for  the  salvation  of  my  soul  than  for  the 
life  of  my  body,  and  that  I  may  give  myself  and  all  I  have  up 
to  Christ  and  honer  him  by  a  sacrifise  of  all  we  have."  8 

Similar  pious  expressions  are  to  be  found  in  almost  every 
one  of  John  Brown's  letters  to  the  members  of  his  family. 
Their  salvation,  their  clinging  to  the  orthodox  Congregational 
faith  to  which  he  held  so  tenaciously,  their  devotion  to  the 
Scriptures,  —  these  are  things  which  ever  concerned  him. 
Indeed,  the  resemblance  of  John  Brown  to  his  father  appears 
in  many  ways,  not  the  least  in  their  respective  biographies. 
Owen's  is  as  characteristic  a  document  as  the  one  which 
begins  this  volume.  In  it  he  relates  his  wanderings  as  an 
apprentice  and  later  as  a  full-fledged  shoemaker  and  tanner. 


12  JOHN  BROWN 

But  if  he  moved  about  a  good  deal  in  the  struggle  to  sup 
port  himself,  learn  a  trade  and  relieve  the  heavily  burdened 
mother  of  his  support,  when  he  finally  reached  Ohio,  in  1805, 
Owen  Brown  remained  in  one  locality  for  fifty-one  years,  until 
his  death,  May  8,  1856.  Owen  received,  he  narrates,  consid 
erable  instruction  from  the  Rev.  Jeremiah  Hallock,  the  min 
ister  of  Canton,  who  was  a  connection  of  many  of  the  Browns, 
hiring  out  to  this  worthy  pastor  for  six  months  in  1790.  In 
the  spring  of  1791  the  family  fortunes  were  again  in  the 
ascendant.  One  brother,  John  by  name,  was  for  many  years 
an  honored  citizen  of  New  Hartford,  Connecticut;  another, 
Frederick,  after  serving  in  the  Connecticut  Legislature  during 
the  War  of  1812,  moved  to  Wadsworth,  Medina  County,  Ohio, 
where  he  was  long  a  highly  respected  county  judge.  Of  this 
Frederick's  sons,  two  became  successful  physicians  and  one 
a  minister. 

In  the  fall  of  1790,  Owen  Brown  became  acquainted  with 
his  future  wife,  Ruth  Mills,  "who  was  the  choice  of  my  affec 
tions  ever  after,  although  we  were  not  married  for  more  than 
two  years."  He  was,  at  this  time,  it  appears,  "under  some 
conviction  of  sin  but  whether  I  was  pardoned  or  not  God  only 
knows  —  this  I  know  I  have  not  lived  like  a  Christian."  The 
beginning  of  his  married  life  Owen  Brown  described  thus : 

"  Feb  1 3th  1793  I  was  married  to  Ruth  Mills  in  March  begun  to 
keep  House  and  here  I  will  say  was  the  begining  of  days  with  me. 
I  think  our  good  Minister  felt  all  the  anxiety  of  Parent  that  we 
should  begin  wright,  he  gave  us  good  counsel  and  I  have  no  doubts 
with  a  praying  spiret,  here  I  will  say  never  had  any  Person  such  an 
assendence  over  my  conduct  as  my  wife,  this  she  had  without  the  lest 
appearence  of  userpation,  and  if  I  have  been  respected  in  the  World 
I  must  ascribe  it  more  to  her  than  to  any  other  Person.  We  begun 
with  but  very  little  property  but  with  industry  and  frugality,  which 
gave  us  a  very  comfortable  seport  and  a  small  increas.  We  took  in 
children  to  live  with  us  very  soon  after  we  began  to  keep  House.* 
Our  first  Child  was  born  at  Canton  June  29th  1794  a  son  we  called 
Salmon  he  was  a  very  thrifty  forward  Child,  we  lived  in  Canton  about 
two  years,  I  worked  at  Shoemaking,  Tanning  and  Farming  we  made 
Butter  and  Chees  on  a  small  scale  and  all  our  labours  turned  to  good 
account,  we  had  great  calls  [cause]  for  thanksgiven,  we  were  at  peace 
with  all  our  Neighbours,  we  lived  in  a  rented  House  and  I  seamed 

*  Lev!  Blakeslee,  early  adopted  by  Owen  and  Ruth  Brown,  became  the  head 
of  a  highly  respected  Ohio  family. 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  13 

to  be  called  to  build  or  moove.  I  thought  of  the  latter  and  went 
directly  to  Norfolk  as  I  was  there  acquainted  and  my  wife  had  kept 
a  school  there  one  summer,  the  People  of  Norfolk  incoureged  me  and 
I  bought  a  small  Farm  with  House  and  Barn,  I  then  sold  what  little 
I  had,  and  made  a  very  suddon  move  to  Norfolk,  we  found  Friends 
in  deed  and  in  kneed.  I  there  set  up  Shoemaking  and  tanning,  hired 
a  journaman  did  a  small  good  business  and  gave  good  sattisfac- 
tion.  ...  In  Feb,  1799  I  had  an  oppertunity  to  sell  my  place  of  Nor 
folk  which  I  did  without  any  consultation  of  our  Neighbours  who 
thought  they  had  some  clame  on  my  future  servises  as  they  had  been 
very  kind  and  helpfull  and  questioned  weather  I  had  not  been  hasty 
but  I  went  as  hastely  to  Torrington  and  bought  a  place,  all  though 
I  had  but  very  little  acquantence  there.  I  was  very  quick  on  the 
moove  we  found  very  good  Neighbours  I  was  somewhat  prosperus 
in  my  business.  In  1800,  May  9th  John  was  born  one  hundred 
years  after  his  Great  Grand  Father  nothing  very  uncommon.  .  .  . 
my  determination  to  come  to  Ohio  was  so  strong  that  I  started 
with  my  Family  in  Comp[any]  [with]  B  Whedan  Esq  and  his  Family 
all  though  out  of  health  on  the  9th  of  June  1805  with  an  Ox  teem 
through  Pennsylvania  here  I  will  say  I  found  Mr.  Whedan  a  very 
kind  and  helpfull  Companion  on  the  Road,  we  arived  at  Hudson  on 
the  27  of  July  and  was  received  with  many  tokens  of  kindness  we  did 
not  come  to  a  land  of  idleness  neither  did  I  expect  it.  Our  ways  were 
as  prosperious  as  we  could  expect.  I  came  with  a  determination  to 
help  to  build  up  and  be  a  help  in  the  seport  of  religion  and  civil  Order. 
We  had  some  hardships  to  undergo  but  they  appear  greater  in  history 
than  they  were  in  reality.  I  was  often  calld  to  go  into  woods  to  make 
devisians  of  lands  sometimes  60  or  70  Miles  [from]  home  and  be  gone 
some  times  two  week  and  sleep  on  the  ground  and  that  without  in- 
jery.  When  we  came  to  Ohio  the  Indians  were  more  numorous  than 
the  white  People  but  were  very  friendly  and  I  beleave  were  a  benifet 
rather  than  injery  there  [were]  some  Persons  that  seamed  disposed 
to  quarel  with  the  Indians  but  I  never  had,  they  brought  us  Venson 
Turkeys  Fish  and  the  like  sometimes  wanted  bread  or  meal  more 
than  they  could  pay  for,  but  were  faithfull  to  pay  there  debts.  .  .  . 
My  business  went  on  very  well  and  was  somewhat  prosperious  in 
most  of  our  conceirns  friendly  feelings  were  manfest  the  company 
that  called  on  us  was  of  the  best  kind  the  Missionarus  of  the  Gos 
pel  and  leading  men  traviling  through  the  Cuntry  call  on  us  and  I 
become  acquaint  with  the  business  People  and  Ministers  of  the 
Gospel  in  all  parts  of  the  Reserve  and  some  in  Pennsilvany  1807  Feb 
I3th  Fredrick  my  6th  Son  was  born  I  do  not  think  of  anything  to 
notice  but  the  common  blessings  of  health  peace  and  prosperity 
for  which  I  would  ever  acknowledge  with  thanksgiven  I  had  a  very 
pleasent  and  orderly  family  untill  December  9th  1808  when  all  my 
earthly  prospects  appeared  to  be  blasted  My  beloved  Wife  gave 
birth  to  an  Infent  Daughter  that  died  in  a  few  ours  as  my  wife 
expresed  [it]  had  a  short  pasage  through  time  My  wife  followed  in 


14  JOHN  BROWN 

a  few  ours  after  these  were  days  of  affliction  I  was  left  with 
five  (or  six,  including  Levi  Blakesley,  my  adopted  son)  small  Chil 
dren  the  oldes  but  a  little  one  10  years  old  this  sean  all  most  makes 
my  heart  blead  now  these  were  the  first  that  were  ever  buried  in 
ground  now  ocupide  at  the  Centre  of  Hudson." 

Owen  Brown  was  subsequently  married  twice,  his  second 
wife  being  Sallie  Root,  and  his  third  Mrs.  Lucy  Hinsdale.  He 
was  the  father  of  ten  sons  and  six  daughters,  the  most  distin- 
y  guished  of  them,  next  to  John  Brown,  being  Salmon  Brown, 
who  died  in  New  Orleans  September  6,  1833,  a  lawyer  of 
standing,  the  editor  of  the  New  Orleans  Bee,  and  a  politician 
bitterly  opposed  to  President  Jackson  and  his  methods.  Owen 
Brown  was  early  in  life  an  Abolitionist,  and  in  a  quaint  manu 
script  left  the  story  of  his  becoming  one.  A  Mr.  Thomson,  a 
Presbyterian  or  Congregational  minister  of  Virginia,  brought 
his  slaves  to  New  Canaan,  Connecticut,  for  safety  during  the 
Revolution.  In  1797  or  1798  he  returned  to  move  them  back 
to  Virginia,  at  which  they  rebelled,  one  married  slave  run 
ning  away.  The  owner  declared  that  he  would  carry  the  wife 
and  children  back  to  bondage  without  him.  The  situation  was 
complicated  by  Mr.  Thomson's  having  been  asked  to  preach. 
He  was  finally  requested  not  to  appear  in  the  pulpit;  the 
matter  then  came  before  the  assembled  church,  and  there 
was  a  vigorous  debate  in  Mr.  Thomson's  presence.  What 
happened  is  thus  told  by  Owen  Brown : 9 

"An  old  man  asked  him  if  he  could  part  man  and  wife  contrary 
to  their  minds.  Mr.  T.  said  he  married  them  himself,  and  did  not 
enjoin  obedience  on  the  woman.  He  was  asked  if  he  did  not  consider 
marriage  to  be  an  institution  of  God ;  he  said  he  did.  He  was  again 
asked  why  he  did  not  do  it  in  conformity  of  God's  word.  He  ap 
peared  checked,  and  only  said  it  was  the  custom.  He  was  told  that 
the  blacks  were  free  by  the  act  of  the  Legislature  of  Connecticut ; 
he  said  he  belonged  to  another  State,  and  that  Connecticut  had  no 
controle  over  his  property.  I  think  he  did  not  get  his  property  as 
he  call[ed]  it.  Ever  since,  I  have  been  an  Abolitionist ;  I  am  so  near 
the  end  of  life  I  think  I  shall  die  an  Abolitionist." 

And  this  he  did,  as  consistently  as  he  had  lived  a  voluntary 
agent  of  the  Underground  Railroad,  never  failing  to  aid  a 
fugitive  slave  who  appealed  to  him  for  food  and  forwarding 
toward  the  North  Star.10  Thus  his  son  John  had  every  incen 
tive  to  follow  in  his  footsteps.  How  deeply  Owen  Brown  felt 


OWEN    BROWN 
Father  of  John  Brown 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  15 

appears  from  his  withdrawal  of  his  long-sustained  and  active 
interest  in  Western  Reserve  College,  when  that  institution 
refused  admission  to  a  colored  man.11  He  then  became  a 
supporter  of  Oberlin  College,  of  which  he  was  a  trustee  from 
November  24,  1835,  until  August  28,  i844.12 

Of  Ruth  Mills,  John  Brown's  mother,  it  is  to  be  noted, 
besides  her  premature  death  when  her  famous  son  was  but 
eight  years  old,  that  her  ancestry  goes  as  far  back  in  the 
colonial  records  as  does  her  husband's.  The  Mills  family  is 
descended  from  Peter  Wouter  van  der  Meulen,  of  Amsterdam, 
whose  son  Peter  settled  in  Windsor,  Connecticut.  He  refused 
to  Anglicize  his  name,  but  his  son  Peter,  born  1666,  became 
plain  Peter  Mills.  Of  the  next  generation,  the  Rev.  Gideon 
Mills  graduated  from  Yale  College,  but  died  before  the  Revo 
lution,  in  which  his  son,  Lieutenant  Gideon  Mills,  served  well. 
When  fifty-one  years  of  age,  in  1800,  the  latter  removed  to 
Ohio,  five  years  before  his  daughter  Ruth  and  her  husband, 
Owen  Brown,  followed  him  into  that  wild  territory.  Through 
his  maternal  grandmother,  Ruth  Humphrey,  John  Brown 
of  Osawatomie  was  connected  with  a  well-known  divine,  the 
Rev.  Luther  Humphrey,  and  was  cousin  also  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Heman  Humphrey,  sometime  president  of  Amherst  College, 
as  well  as  to  the  Rev.  Nathan  Brown,  long  a  missionary  in 
India  and  Japan.  There  was  thus  on  both  sides  a  family  con 
nection  of  which  John  Brown  might  well  be  proud,  that  war 
ranted,  in  later  Kansas  days,  his  introduction  to  a  committee  ' 
of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  as  a  representative  of  the 
best  type  of  old  New  England  citizenship.  It  is  undeniable, 
too,  that  the  influence  of  his  ancestry  was  a  powerful  one 
throughout  Brown's  entire  life.  In  some  respects,  as  has  been 
often  suggested,  he  seems  to  have  belonged  to  the  eighteenth 
rather  than  to  the  nineteenth  century,  if  not  to  a  still  earlier 
one.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that,  had  he  been  brought  face 
to  face  with  his  ancestors,  there  would  have  been  discovered 
a  marked  resemblance  in  character,  if  not  in  looks;  for  the 
main  traits  which  marked  the  frugal,  sober-minded,  religious, 
soil-tilling  farmer-folk  of  New  England  were  all  in  that  de 
scendant  who,  so  far  as  history  records,  was  the  first  member 
of  the  family  to  go  to  what  is  usually  considered  an  infamous 
death,  as  he  was  the  first  American  to  be  hanged  for  treason. 


1 6  JOHN  BROWN 

Of  John  Brown's  boyhood  but  few  incidents  remain  to  be 
told ;  his  early  maturity  is,  perhaps,  partly  a  reason  for  this. 
For  boys  who  at  twelve  assume  such  duties  and  responsibili 
ties  as  were  his,  there  is  but  a  brief  childhood.  He  seems  to 
have  had  to  his  credit  or  discredit  the  usual  number  of  rough 
pranks.  There  is  a  story  that  he  tried  to  explode  some  powder 
under  his  step-mother,  and  that,  when  his  father  attempted 
to  punish  him  for  this  offence,  a  sheepskin  carefully  tucked 
away  in  his  clothes  protected  him  from  the  force  of  the  blows. 
Again,  it  is  variously  said  that  he  precipitated  his  father,  or 
his  step-mother,  from  the  hay-mow  of  the  barn  to  the  floor 
beneath,  by  placing  loose  planks  over  an  opening  and  then 
enticing  the  victim  across  it.  But  these  and  even  less  authen 
ticated  stories  emanate  often  from  prejudiced  sources,13  and 
if  John  Brown  was  guilty  of  unduly  rough  or  dangerous  horse 
play,  it  is  a  fact  that  he  was  always  on  the  best  of  terms  with 
his  father,  as  their  letters  show,  and  with  his  step-mother.  It 
is  said  of  him  that  he  was  early  one  of  the  best  Bible  teachers 
available,  and  therefore  in  demand  in  the  Sunday  Schools  of 
the  communities  in  which  he  lived.  To  his  steadfast  perusal 
of  the  Bible  is  undoubtedly  due  most  of  the  directness,  the 
clearness  and  the  force  of  his  written  English.  It  was,  declared 
in  after  years  his  daughter,  Ruth  Brown  Thompson,14  his 
favorite  volume,  "and  he  had  such  a  perfect  knowledge  of  it 
that  when  any  person  was  reading  it,  he  would  correct  the 
least  mistake."  His  range  of  reading  was,  however,  at  no  time 
wide ;  his  taste  was  for  historical  works.  Franklin's  writings, 
Rollin's  Ancient  History,  ^Esop's  Fables,  Plutarch's  Lives, 
a  life  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  and  one  of  Napoleon  and  his  Mar 
shals,  all  had  their  influence  upon  him.  His  Pilgrim's  Progress 
he  naturally  knew  well,  and  Baxter's  Saints'  Rest  was  to  him 
a  safe  and  sure  guide  to  devout  Christianity,  while  the  works 
of  Edwards  and  Witherspoon  were  always  on  his  shelves.  In 
all  his  letters,  there  is  hardly  a  reference  to  any  book  save 
the  Bible. 

As  for  John  Brown's  schooling,  as  his  autobiography  records, 
it  was  fitful  and  scanty.  The  public  schools  of  a  newly  occu 
pied  region  are  not  often  of  the  best.  The  first  one  in  Hudson 
was  established  in  1 80 1,  in  a  log-house  near  the  centre  of  the 
Hudson  township,  and  it  is  probable  that  John  Brown  at- 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  17 

tended  this  school,  as  Owen  Brown's  home  was  in  this  vicinity. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  of  New  Haven,  was  a  school 
mate  of  Brown's  at  Tallmadge,  Ohio,  in  1808,  in  a  school 
founded  by  Bacon's  father.  An  old  lady,  years  afterwards, 
when  Bacon  shortly  before  his  death  revisited  Tallmadge, 
reminded  him  of  a  curious  dialogue  at  a  school  exhibition 
between  himself  as  William  Penn  and  John  Brown  as  Pi- 
zarro.15  When  a  tall  stripling,  either  in  1816  or  1819,  Brown 
revisited  Connecticut  with  his  brother  Salmon  and  another 
settler's  son,  Orson  M.  Oviatt,  with  the  idea  of  going  to 
Amherst  College  and  entering  the  ministry.  During  his  brief 
stay  in  the  East,  he  attended  the  well-known  school  of  the 
Rev.  Moses  Hallock  at  Plainfield,  Massachusetts,  and  Morris 
Academy  in  Connecticut.16  A  son  of  Mr.  Hallock,  in  1859, 
remembered  him  as  a  "tall,  sedate  and  dignified  young  man. 
He  had  been  a  tanner,  and  relinquished  a  prosperous  business 
for  the  purpose  of  intellectual  improvement.  He  brought  with 
him  a  piece  of  sole  leather  about  a  foot  square,  which  he  him 
self  had  tanned  for  seven  years,  to  resole  his  boots.  He  had 
also  a  piece  of  sheepskin  which  he  had  tanned,  and  of  which 
he  cut  some  strips,  about  an  eighth  of  an  inch  wide,  for  other 
students  to  pull  upon."  The  schoolmaster  confidently  tried  to 
snap  one  of  these  straps,  but  in  vain,  and  his  son  long  remem 
bered  "the  very  marked,  yet  kind,  immovableness  of  the 
young  man's  [Brown's]  face  on  seeing  his  father's  defeat."  17 
But  an  attack  of  inflammation  of  the  eyes  put  an  end  to 
Brown's  dream  of  a  higher  education,  and  he  returned  to 
Hudson  and  the  tanning  business,  living  in  a  cabin  near  the 
tan-yard,  at  first  keeping  bachelor's  hall  with  Levi  Blakeslee, 
his  adopted  brother.  John  Brown  was  early  a  remarkably 
good  cook,  with  a  strong  liking  for  this  part  of  housekeep 
ing  which  lasted  throughout  his  life.18  The  neatness  of  his 
kitchen  was  surpassed  by  that  of  no  housewife,  and  the  pains 
he  took  to  sweep  and  sand  the  floor  are  still  remembered. 

It  was  while  he  was  living  thus  that  there  occurred  another 
incident  to  confirm  his  opposition  to  slavery.  To  John  Brown 
and  Levi  Blakeslee  came  a  runaway  slave  begging  for  aid.  He 
was  at  once  taken  into  the  cabin,  where  John  Brown  stood 
guard  over  him  while  Blakeslee,  when  evening  had  come,  went 
up  to  the  town  for  supplies.  Suddenly  the  slave  and  his  Sa- 


18  JOHN  BROWN 

maritan  heard  the  noise  of  approaching  horses.  John  Brown 
motioned  to  the  slave  to  go  out  of  the  window  and  hide  in  the 
brush.  This  he  did.  Soon  the  alarm  proved  to  have  been  occa 
sioned  only  by  neighbors  returning  from  town,  and  Brown 
went  out  into  the  dark  to  look  for  the  negro.  ("I  found  him 
behind  a  log,"  he  said  in  telling  the  story,  "and  I  heard  his 
heart  thumping  before  I  reached  him.  At  that  I  vowed  eternal 
enmity  to  slavery."  19  Another  story  of  John  Brown's  kind 
ness  of  heart  probably  belongs  to  this  period.  His  uncle, 
Frederick  Brown,  then  judge  of  Wadsworth  County,  obtained 
a  requisition  from  Governor  Trimble,  of  Ohio,  on  the  Governor 
of  New  York  for  the  arrest  of  a  young  horse  thief,  and  gave  it 
to  his  nephew  in  Hudson  to  serve.  John  Brown  found  the  boy 
and  arrested  him.  Then  Brown  managed,  because  it  was  a 
first  offence  and  the  boy  was  repentant,  and  because  the  peni 
tentiary  would  ruin  his  character,  to  save  him  from  that  fate, 
and  to  have  him,  instead,  indentured  till  his  twenty-first  year 
to  the  man  whose  horse  he  stole.  He  got  the  neighbors  to  go 
bond  for  the  boy's  good  behavior  during  the  period.  This 
was  done,  the  boy  reformed,  and  died  a  respected  citizen  in 
old  age.20  These  and  other  incidents  would  seem  to  show  that 
when  John  Brown  professed  religion  in  1816  and  joined  the 
Congregational  Church,  to  which  he  was  ever  after  so  devoted, 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  try  to  practise  as  well  as  to 
profess  the  doctrines  of  Christianity. 

Good  cook  that  John  Brown  was,  he  had  been  having  his 
bread  baked  by  Mrs.  Amos  Lusk,  a  widow  living  near  by. 
Soon  he  decided  that  it  would  be  better  if  she  moved  into  his 
log-cabin  with  her  daughter  and  took  charge  of  the  entire 
housekeeping,  now  become  serious  by  reason  of  the  growth 
of  his  tanning  business  and  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
journeymen  and  apprentices.  The  propinquity  of  the  young 
home-maker  and  of  the  "remarkably  plain"  daughter  of  Mrs. 
Lusk  led  promptly  to  matrimony.  They  were  married  June 
21,  1820,  when  the  husband  lacked  nearly  eleven  months  of 
being  of  age.  If  Dianthe  Lusk  was  plain  and  rather  short  in 
stature,  she  attracted  by  her  quiet,  amiable  disposition.  As 
deeply  religious  as  her  husband,  she  was  given  to  singing  well, 
generally  hymns  and  religious  songs,  was  neat  and  cheerful, 
and  without  a  marked  sense  of  humor.  In  the  twelve  years  of 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  19 

their  married  life,  Dianthe  gave  birth  to  seven  children,  dying 
August  10,  1832,  three  days  after  the  coming  of  a  son.  Of  her 
other  six  children,  five  grew  to  manhood  and  womanhood,  all 
of  marked  character  and  vigorous  personality :  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  Jason,  Owen,  Ruth  and  Frederick,  the  last  named  meeting 
a  cruel  death  in  Kansas  in  his  twenty-sixth  year.  Of  these, 
Jason  alone  survives  at  this  writing,  at  the  age  of  eighty-six. 
Dianthe  Lusk,  too,  could  boast  of  an  old  colonial  lineage,  for 
her  ancestry  traced  back  to  the  famous  Adams  family  of  Mas- 
.  sachusetts.  There  was,  however,  a  mental  weakness  in  the  Lusk 
family  which  manifested  itself  early  in  her  married  life,  as 
it  did  in  her  two  sisters.21  In  two  of  her  sons,  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  and  Frederick,  there  was  also  a  disposition  to  insanity. 
Devoted  as  he  was  to  his  wife,  John  Brown  ruled  his  home 
with  a  strong  hand,  in  a  way  that  seemed  to  some  akin  to 
cruelty;  but  his  children  and  an  overwhelming  mass  of  evi 
dence  prove  the  contrary.  He  did  not  get  on  well  with  his 
brother-in-law,  Milton  Lusk,  who  refused  to  attend  the  wed 
ding  because  John  Brown  the  Puritan  had  asked  him  to  visit 
his  mother  and  sister  on  some  other  day  than  the  Sabbath.22 
They  were  at  no  time  congenial,  though  in  later  years  Milton 
Lusk  bore  no  ill-will  to  his  brother-in-law ;  yet  he  always 
disliked  the  rigor  imposed  upon  his  sister's  household.  But 
the  Brown  children  were  devoted  to  both  parents,  and  revered 
always  the  memory  of  their  mother.  They  remembered,  too, 
when  symptoms  of  mental  illness  appeared,  the  kindliness  and 
tenderness  with  which  the  husband  shielded  and  tended  and 
watched  over  his  wife. 

As  to  his  children,  John  Brown  at  first  believed  in  the  use  of 
the  rod,  and  he  was  particularly  anxious  that  they  should  not 
yield  to  the  "habit  of  lying"  which  had  worried  him  so  much 
in  his  own  boyhood.  "Terribly  severe "  is  the  way  his  punish 
ments  were  described,  and  he  made  no  allowance  for  childish 
imaginings.  Once  when  Jason,  then  not  yet  four  years  old,  told 
of  a  dream  he  had  had  and  insisted  that  it  was  the  reality,  his 
father  thrashed  him  severely,  albeit  with  tears  in  his  eyes.23 
But  in  later  years,  it  is  pleasant  to  record,  John  Brown,  after 
travelling  about  the  world,  came  to  realize  that  there  were 
other  methods  of  dealing  with  children,  and  softened  consider 
ably,  even  expressing  regret  for  his  early  theory  and  practice 


20  JOHN  BROWN 

of  punishments.   There  are  instances  in  number  of  touching 
devotion  to  this  or  that  child ;  of  his  sitting  up  night  after  night 
with  an  ailing  infant.    Once  he  hurried  to  North  Elba  from 
Troy  on  the  rumor  that  smallpox  had  broken  out  in  a  near-by 
village,  in  order  that  he  might  be  on  hand  to  nurse  if  the 
scourge  entered  his  family.   He  nursed  several  of  his  children 
through  scarlet  fever  without  medical  aid,  and  in  consequence 
became  in  demand  in  other  stricken  homes  in  the  neighbor 
hood.  "  Whenever  any  of  the  family  were  sick,  he  did  not  often 
trust  watchers  to  care  for  the  sick  ones,  but  sat  up  himself  and 
was  like  a  tender  mother.   At  one  time  he  sat  up  every  night 
for  two  weeks,  while  mother  was  sick,  for  fear  he  would  over 
sleep  if  he  went  to  bed,  and  the  fire  would  go  out,  and  she  take 
cold.    No  one  outside  of  his  own  family  can  ever  know  the 
strength  and  tenderness  of  his  character,"  wrote  Mrs.  Ruth 
Brown  Thompson  in  her  reminiscences  of  her  father.    His 
character  was  not  an  unusual  one  in  this  respect ;  the  combi 
nation  of  iron  discipline  with  extreme  tenderness  of  heart  is 
often  the  mark  of  deep  affection  and  high  purpose  in  men  of 
power  and  rigid  self-control,  and  so  it  was  with  him.    Not 
unnaturally,  his  children  reacted  from  "the  very  strict  con 
trol  and  Sunday  School  rules"  under  which  they  lived,  and 
used,  as  Salmon  puts  it,  "  to  carry  on  pretty  high,"  as  some  of 
the  neighbors  who  still  live  can  tell  the  tale. 

Sabbath  in  the  Brown  family  had  all  the  horrors  of  the  New 
England  rest  day  of  several  generations  ago.  There  were  strict 
religious  observances,  and  there  was  no  playing  and  no  pre 
tence  at  playing.  Visiting  was  discouraged,  as  well  as  receiving 
visits.  The  head  of  the  family  was  not  without  humor,  but  as 
Fowler,  the  phrenologist,  correctly  said  of  him,  his  jokes  were 
"more  cutting  than  cute."  He  inclined  to  sarcasm,  and  "his 
words  were  as  sharp  as  his  eyes  to  those  who  did  not  please 
him."  (In  the  final  drama  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Watson  Brown 
said  to  his  father:  "The  trouble  is,  you  want  your  boys  to  be 
brave  as  tigers,  and  still  afraid  of  you."j  "And  that  was  per 
fectly  true"  is  Salmon  Brown's  confirmation  of  the  remark. 
Similarly,  John  Brown  wanted  his  children  to  be  as  true  as 
steel,  as  honest  as  men  and  women  possibly  can  be  and  as 
truthful,  and  yet  afraid  of  him.  As  was  often  the  case,  the 
intense  religious  training  given  to  his  children  in  the  broaden- 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  21 

ing  period  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  resulted 
in  a  reaction.  All  his  sons  were  strangers  to  church-ties.  In 
this  their  strong  feeling  in  regard  to  slavery,  to  which  they 
came  naturally  from  grandfather  and  father,  played  a  great 
part.  Yet  this  dislike  of  slavery  was  never  beaten  into  them  ; 
nor  is  it  true  that  John  Brown  ever  forced  a  son  into  one  of 
his  campaigns.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  could  often  have  com 
manded  such  strong  natures.  Dislike  of  human  bondage,  as  the 
children  grew  up,  became  as  much  a  factor  in  the  family's  life 
as  the  natural  desire  for  food  and  clothing  and  shelter.  It  was 
no  more  assumed  than  inculcated  ;  they  hated  it  with  a  hatred 
greater  in  some  cases  than  their  wish  to  live.  Whatever  else 
may  be  said  of  the  Brown  family  life,  or  of  the  father  as  a  dis 
ciplinarian,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  children  grew  up  into  honorable 
men  and  women,  not  successful  in  accumulating  worldly  goods 
in  any  degree,  but  as  illustrative  of  the  homely  virtues  as  their 
father  and  their  grandfather.  Temperate  they  all  of  them 
were,  like  their  father,  yet  not  all  or  always  total  abstainers. 
John  Brown  himself,  though  an  abstainer  after  1829,  firmly 
believed  that  "a  free  use  of  pure  wines  in  the  country  would 
do  away  with  a  great  deal  of  intemperance,  and  that  it  was  a 
good  temperance  work  to  make  pure  wine  and  use  it."  24  For 
a  time  two  of  his  sons  devoted  themselves  to  grape-growing 
for  wine  purposes,  until  they  finally  came  to  have  scruples 
against  it. 

Of  John  Brown's  early  life  after  his  marriage  there  is,  for 
tunately,  a  reliable  record.  James  Foreman,  one  of  his  jour 
neymen  in  1820,  wrote  down  his  recollections  of  his  employer 
shortly  after  the  latter's  death  in  i859,25  for  the  benefit  of 
Brown's  first  biographer,  who  did  not,  however,  utilize  them. 


was  John  Brown's  fixed  rule,"  wrote  Mr.  Foreman,  "that 
his  apprentices  and  journeymen  must  always  attend  church  every 
Sunday,  and  family  worship  every  morning.  In  the  summer  of  1824 
a  journeyman  of  his  stole  from  him  a  very  fine  calfskin.  Brown  dis 
covered  the  deed,  made  the  man  confess,  lectured  him  at  length  and 
then  told  him  he  would  not  prosecute  him  unless  he  left  his  place  ; 
but,  that,  if  he  did  leave,  he  should  be  prosecuted  to  the  end  of  the 
law. 

-  "The  journeyman  staid  about  two  months,  through  fear  of  pro 
secution  ;  and  in  the  meantime  all  hands  about  the  tannery  and  in 
the  house  were  strictly  forbidden  speaking  to  him,  not  even  to  ask  a 


22  JOHN  BROWN 

question ;  and  I  think  a  worse  punishment  could  not  have  been  set 
upon  a  poor  human  being  than  this  was  to  him:  But  it  reformed 
him  and  he  afterward  became  a  useful  man.  / 

"  In  the  fall  of  the  same  year  his  wife  was  taken  sick  under  pecul 
iar  circumstances,  and  Brown  started  for  the  Dr.  and  some  lady 
friends,  from  his  residence  ij  miles  to  the  centre  of  Hudson.  On  his 
way  he  espied  two  men  tying  up  two  bags  of  apples  and  making 
ready  to  put  them  on  their  horses.  Brown  immediately  tied  his  own 
horse,  went  to  the  men  and  made  them  empty  their  apples,  own  up 
to  the  theft,  and  settle  up  the  matter  before  he  attended  to  the  case 
of  his  wife.  Such  was  his  strict  integrity  for  honesty  and  justice." 

Once,  Mr.  Foreman  remembered,  Brown  fell  into  a  discus 
sion  with  a  Methodist  minister,  who,  being  flippant  and  fluent, 
seemed  to  talk  the  tanner  down. 

"  [Brown]  afterward  commented  on  the  man's  manners  and  said  he 
should  like  a  public  debate  with  him.  Soon  after  the  preacher  came 
to  enquire  whether  Brown  desired,  as  was  reported,  a  public  debate, 
and  whether,  also,  if  he  had  said  the  speaker  was  '  no  gentleman,  let 
alone  a  clergyman.'  Brown  replied:  '  I  did  say  you  were  no  gentle 
man.  I  said  more  than  that,  sir.'  'What  did  you  say,  sir? '  enquired 
the  preacher.  'I  said,  sir,'  replied  Brown,  'that  it  would  take  as 
many  men  like  you  to  make  a  gentleman  as  it  would  take  wrens  to 
make  a  cock  turkey ! '  The  public  debate,  however,  came  off,  con 
ducted  in  questions  and  answers,  Brown  first  to  ask  all  his  questions, 
which  the  other  should  answer  and  then  the  reverse.  But  John 
Brown's  questions  so  exhausted  and  confused  his  opponent,  that  the 
latter  retired  without  opening  his  side  of  the  debate.  ...  So  strict 
was  he  that  his  leather  should  be  perfectly  dry  before  sold,  that  a 
man  might  come  ten  miles  for  five  pounds  of  sole  leather  and  if  the 
least  particle  of  moisture  could  be  detected  in  it  he  must  go  home 
without  it.  No  compromise  as  to  amount  of  dampness  could  be 
effected.  .  .  .fHe  was  jocose  and  mirthful,  when  the  conversation 
did  not  turn  on  anything  profane  or  vulgar,  and  the  Bible  was  almost 
,  at  his  tongue's  end.  .  .  .  He  considered  it  as  much  his  duty  to  help 
a  negro  escape  as  it  was  to  help  catch  a  horse  thief,  and  of  a  new 
settler  .  .  .  [his]  first  enquiry  .  .  .  was  whether  he  was  an  observer 
of  the  Sabbath,  opposed  to  slavery  and  a  supporter  of  the  gospel  and 
common  schools ;  if  so,  all  was  right  with  him ;  if  not,  he  was  looked 
upon  by  Brown  with  suspicion.  In  politics  he  was  originally  an 
Adams  man  and  afterwards  a  Whig  and  I  believe  a  strong  one.  Yet 
I  do  not  believe  the  time  ever  was  that  he  would  have  voted  for 
Henry  Clay,  for  the  reason  that  he  had  fought  a  duel  and  owned 
slaves.  .  .  .  His  food  was  always  plain  and  simple,  all  luxuries  being 
dispensed  with  and  not  allowed  in  his  family,  and  in  the  year  1830 
he  rigidly  adopted  the  teetotal  temperance  principle. 

"  Hunting,  gunning  and  fishing  he  had  an  abhorrence  of  as  learn- 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  23 

ing  men  and  boys  to  idle  away  their  time  and  learn  them  lazy  habits, 
and  it  was  with  the  greatest  reluctance  that  he  would  trust  a  man 
with  a  piece  of  leather  who  came  after  it  with  a  gun  on  his  shoulder. 
.  .  .  He  took  great  pains  to  inculcate  general  information  among 
the  people,  good  moral  books  and  papers,  and  to  establish  a  reading 
community." 

In  May,  1825,  despite  the  success  of  his  Hudson  tannery 
and  his  having  built  himself  a  substantial  house  the  year 
before,  John  Brown  moved  his  family  to  Richmond,  Crawford 
County,  Pennsylvania,  near  Meadville,  where  with  note 
worthy  energy  he  had  cleared  twenty-five  acres  of  timber 
lands,  built  a  fine  tannery,  sunk  vats,  and  had  leather  tan 
ning  in  them  all  by  the  1st  of  October.26  The  virgin  forests 
and  cheap  cost  of  transportation  lured  him  to  his  new  home^ 
Here,  like  his  father  at  Hudson,  John  Brown  was  of  marked 
value  to  the  new  settlement  at  Richmond  by  his  devotion  to 
the  cause  of  religion  and  civil  order.  He  surveyed  new  roads, 
was  instrumental  in  erecting  school-houses,  procuring  preach 
ers  and  "  encouraging  everything  that  would  have  a  moral 
tendency."  It  became  almost  a  proverb  in  Richmond,  so  Mr. 
Foreman  records,  to  say  of  an  aggressive  man  that  he  was 
"  as  enterprising  and  honest  as  John  Brown,  and  as  useful  to 
the  county."  This  removal  of  his  family  gave  its  young  mem^ 
bers  just  such  a  taste  of  pioneering  as  their  father  had  had  at 
Hudson,  and  was  the  first  of  ten  migrations  under  the  lead 
ership  of  their  restless  head,  prior  to  the  emigration  to  Kansas 
of  the  eldest  sons  in  1854-55.  In  Richmond  the  family  dwelt 
nearly  ten  years,  until  for  business  reasons  the  bread-winner 
felt  himself  compelled  to  return  to  Ohio.27 

In  the  year  1828  John  Brown  brought  into  Crawford  County 
the  first  blooded  stock  its  settlers  had  ever  seen.  Being  in 
strumental  in  obtaining  the  first  post-office  in  that  region, 
he  received  this  same  year  the  appointment  of  postmaster 
from  President  John  Quincy  Adams,  January  7,  serving  until 
May  27,  1835,  when  he  left  the  State;  and  there  are  letters 
extant  bearing  his  franks  as  postmaster  of  Randolph,  as  the 
new  post-office  was  called.  The  first  school  was  held  alternately 
in  John  Brown's  home  and  that  of  a  Delamater  family,  con 
nections  of  Dianthe  Lusk,  the  Delamater  children  boarding 
for  the  winter  terms  in  Brown's  home,  and  the  Brown  chil- 


24  JOHN  BROWN 

dren  spending  the  summer  terms  at  the  Delamaters',  for 
a  period  of  four  years,  only  a  few  other  children  attending. 
George  B.  Delamater,  one  of  the  scholars,  retained  a  vivid 
impression  of  the  early  winter  breakfasts  in  the  Brown  family, 
"immediately  after  which  Bibles  were  distributed,  Brown 
requiring  each  one  to  read  a  given  number  of  verses,  himself 
leading ;  then  he  would  stand  up  and  pray,  grasping  the  back 
of  the  chair  at  the  top  and  inclining  slightly  forward,"  which 
solemn  moment,  so  Salmon  Brown  remembers,  the  elder  chil 
dren  frequently  utilized  for  playing  tricks  on  one  another. 
Sunday  religious  exercises  were  at  first  held  in  Brown's  barn. 
Of  them  Mr.  Delamater  says,  "everything  seemed  fixed  as 
fate  by  the  inspiring  presence  of  him  whose  every  movement, 
however  spontaneous,  seemed  to  enforce  conformity  to  his 
ideas  of  what  must  or  must  not  be  done.  ...  He  was  no 
scold,  did  nothing  petulantly;  but  seemed  to  be  simply  an 
inspired  paternal  ruler ;  controlling  and  providing  for  the  circle 
of  which  he  was  the  head,"  -  testimony  of  value  as  showing 
that  even  at  this  early  age  Brown  had  the  compelling  power 
of  masterful  leadership. 

Here  in  Richmond  the  first  great  grief  came  into  John 
Brown's  life  in  the  death  of  a  four-year-old  son,  Frederick,  on 
March  31,  1831,  and  the  demise  in  August,  1832,  of  Dianthe 
Brown  and  her  unnamed  infant  son  who  also  had  such  a  "short 
passage  through  time."  28  Their  graves  are  still  to  be  found 
near  the  old,  now  rebuilt,  tannery,  and  are  cared  for  and  pro 
tected  out  of  regard  for  John  Brown.  Nearly  a  year  later  he 
was  married  for  the  second  time,  to  Mary  Anne  Day,29  daugh 
ter  of  Charles  Day,  of  Whitehall,  New  York,  who  was  then 
a  resident  of  Troy  township,  Pennsylvania.  Her  father  was 
a  blacksmith,  who  had  been  fairly  well-to-do,  but  had  lost  his 
property  by  endorsing  notes,  so  that  Mary  Day  grew  up  with 
narrow  means  and  almost  no  schooling.  For  a  time  after  the 
death  of  Dianthe  Brown,  Mary's  elder  sister  went  to  John 
Brown's  as  housekeeper,  and  Mary,  presently,  was  engaged  to 
come  there  to  spin.  She  was  then  a  large,  silent  girl,  only  six 
teen  years  of  age.  John  Brown  quickly  grew  fond  of  her,  per 
haps  saw  the  staying  powers  in  her,  and  one  day  gave  her  a 
letter  offering  marriage.  She  was  so  overcome  that  she  dared 
not  read  it.  Next  morning  she  found  courage  to  do  so,  and 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  25 

when  she  went  down  to  the  spring  for  water  for  the  house,  he 
followed  her  and  she  gave  him  her  answer  there.  A  woman  of 
rugged  physical  health  and  even  greater  ruggedness  of  nature, 
she  bore  for  her  husband  thirteen  children  within  twenty-one 
years,  of  whom  seven  died  in  childhood,  and  two  were  killed 
in  early  manhood  at  Harper's  Ferry.  Besides  the  lives  of  the 
latter,  Oliver  and  Watson,  Mary  Day  Brown  made  cheerfully 
and  willingly  many  other  sacrifices  for  the  cause  to  which  her 
husband  also  gave  his  life,  as  will  appear  later.  No  one  but  a 
strong  character  could  have  borne  uncomplainingly  the  hard 
ships  which  fell  to  her  lot,  particularly  in  her  bleak  Adirondack 
home  in  the  later  years.  But  she  was  as  truly  of  the  stuff  of 
which  martyrs  are  made  as  was  her  husband — even  if  she  had 
had  less  advantages  and  opportunities  for  learning  and  culture 
than  he.  If  there  ever  was  a  family  in  which  the  mother  did 
her  full  share  and  more  of  arduous  labor,  it  was  this  one.  No 
thing  but  the  complete  faith  he  had  in  her  ability  to  be  both 
mother  and  guardian  of  his  flock  made  possible  for  John  Brown 
his  long  absences  from  home  year  after  year,  both  when  in 
business  and  when  warring  against  slavery  in  Kansas  and 
Virginia.  And  Mary  Day  Brown  was  a  woman  of  few  words, 
even  after  the  catastrophe  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
K  During  part  of  the  interval  between  Dianthe  Brown's 
death  and  her  husband's  remarriage,  John  Brown  boarded 
with  Mr.  Foreman,  who  had  just  married.  Even  in  his  first 
grief,  Mr.  Foreman  remembers,  John  Brown  had  a  deep 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  his  neighbors.  Others  remember 
Brown  as  the  organizer  of  an  Independent  Congregational 
Society,  which  came  into  being  on  January  n,  1832,  its  arti 
cles  of  faith  being  written  out  in  his  hand  as  clerk  of  the 
society.  It  is  recalled,  too,  that  besides  being  postmaster  he 
had  for  some  years  the  carrying  of  the  mails  between  Mead- 
ville  and  Riceville,  a  distance  of  twenty  miles.  Politically,  he 
was  at  this  time  an  Adams  man,  and  he  was  still  as  interested 
in  the  fugitive  slave  as  he  had  been  in  Hudson.  There  was 
in  the  haymow  of  his  barn  a  roughly  boarded  room,  entered 
by  a  trap-door,  and  ventilated  and  equipped  for  the  use  of 
escaping  slaves.  The  whole  was  always  so  cleverly  concealed 
by  hay  that  a  man  might  stand  on  the  trap-door  and  yet 
see  no  signs  of  the  hiding-place.  In  striking  contrast  to  John 


26  JOHN  BROWN 

Brown's  later  development  into  a  man  of  disguises,  assumed 
names  and  many  plots,  was  his  dislike  of  the  Masonic  orders. 
He  became  a  member  of  a  lodge  while  residing  either  in  Hud 
son  or  in  Richmond,  and  for  a  while  was  an  ardent  disciple. 
Then,  however,  he  rebelled  and  withdrew.  " Somewhere,"  so 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  told  the  story  in  after  years,  "in  an  historical 
museum,  I  think,  is  the  first  firearm  that  father  ever  possessed. 
The  way  he  came  to  get  it  was  this:  Father  had  been  a  Free 
Mason  for  years.  You  have  read  about  the  great  excitement 
over  the  disappearance  of  Morgan,  who  had  threatened  to 
expose  the  secrets  of  Masonry?  Well,  father  denounced  the 
murder  of  Morgan  in  the  hottest  kind  of  terms.  This  was 
when  we  lived  over  in  Pennsylvania.  Father  had  occasion  to  go 
to  Meadville.  A  mob  bent  on  lynching  him  surrounded  the 
hotel,  but  Landlord  Smith  enabled  him  to  escape  through  a 
back  entrance.  Father  then  got  a  sort  of  pistol  that  was  about 
half  rifle,  and  he  became  very  adept  in  its  use,  killing  deer  with 
it  on  several  occasions."  30  It  was  in  September,  1826,  that 
the  country  was  so  excited  over  the  anti-Masonic  revelations 
of  William  Morgan  which  resulted  in  his  murder. 

After  just  ten  years  of  residence  in  Richmond,  John  Brown 
removed  to  Franklin  Mills,  Portage  County,  Ohio,  to  go  into 
the  tanning  business  with  Zenas  Kent,  a  well-to-do  business 
man  of  that  town.  In  a  letter  written  to  him  on  April  24,  1835, 
John  Brown  thus  details  the  financial  distress  he  found  him 
self  in,  which  no  doubt  accentuated  his  desire  for  a  new  field 
of  activity:  31 

"Yours  of  the  I4th  was  received  by  last  Mail.  I  was  disappointed 
in  the  extreme  not  to  obtain  the  money  I  expected ;  &  I  know  of 
no  possible  way  to  get  along  without  it.  I  had  borrowed  it  for  a  few 
days  to  settle  up  a  number  of  honorary  debts  which  I  could  not 
leave  unpaid  and  come  away.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  sell  any 
thing  for  ready  cash  or  to  collect  debts.  I  expect  Father  to  come  out 
for  cattle  about  the  first  of  May  and  I  wish  you  without  fail  to  send 
it  by  him.  It  is  now  to  late  to  think  of  sending  it  by  mail.  I  was 
intending  to  turn  everything  I  could  into  shingles  as  one  way  to  real 
ize  cash  in  Ohio,  before  you  wrote  me  about  them.  25,  dollars  of  the 
money  I  want  is  to  enable  me  to  carry  that  object  into  effect. ..."  * 

*  In  spelling  and  punctuation  these  earlier  letters  are  superior  to  the  later 
epistles;  the  handwriting  is  by  this  time  the  familiar  one,  full  of  character  and 
strength. 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  27 

The  partnership  of  Kent  &  Brown  was  not  destined  to  be  of 
long  duration,  for  the  latter  had  no  sooner  completed  the 
tannery  at  Franklin  than  it  was  rented  by  Marvin  Kent,  a 
son  of  the  senior  partner,  even  before  the  departments  were 
ready  for  operation  and  the  vats  in  place,  so  that  the  business 
of  tanning  hides  was  never  actually  carried  on  by  the  firm.32 
John  Brown  then  secured  a  contract  for  the  construction  of 
part  of  the  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  Canal,  from  Franklin  Mills 
to  Akron,  during  which  time  he  dealt  chiefly  with  the  Kents. 
It  was  a  year  later  that  John  Brown  began  some  land  specu 
lations  which  proved  quite  disastrous  and  did  much  to  injure 
his  standing  and  business  credit.  With  a  Mr.  Thompson  he 
purchased  a  farm  of  more  than  a  hundred  acres  owned  by  a 
Mr.  Haymaker,  which  then  adjoined  Franklin  village  (now 
the  prosperous  town  of  Kent),  believing  that  the  coming  of 
the  canal  and  other  changes  would  make  Franklin  a  great 
manufacturing  town.  For  this  farm  there  was  paid  $7000, 
mostly  money  borrowed  of  Heman  Oviatt,  who  had  acquired 
large  means  as  a  trader  with  the  Indians,  and  of  Frederick 
Wadsworth.  The  farm  was  quickly  plotted  by  Brown  as 
"  Brown  and  Thompson's  addition  to  Franklin  Village."  But 
he  was  far  ahead  of  his  time  in  this  scheme,  and  within  a 
couple  of  years  the  land  was  foreclosed  by  Oviatt  and  Wads- 
worth.  This  tract,  crossed  by  three  trunk-line  railroads,  is 
now  of  great  value,  containing  as  it  does  an  island  park,  the 
shops  of  the  Erie  Railroad  and  some  large  manufactories.  The 
Haymaker  house  in  which  Brown  lived  is  still  standing. 
About  the  same  time,  John  Brown,  with  twenty-one  other 
prominent  men  of  Franklin,  Ravenna  and  Akron,  formed  the 
Franklin  Land  company,  and  purchased  of  Zenas  Kent  aricl 
others  the  water-power,  mills,  lands,  etc.,  in  both  the  upper 
and  lower  Franklin  villages.  Through  the  cooperation  of  the 
canal  company,  the  two  water-powers  were  combined  mid 
way  between  the  two  villages.  A  new  settlement  was  then 
laid  out  between  both  places,  and  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  a  successful  enterprise,  had  the  canal  company  lived  up 
to  its  agreement.  Instead,  it  drew  off  largely  the  waters  of 
the  Cuyahoga  River,  ostensibly  for  canal  purposes,  but  in 
reality,  in  the  opinion  of  John  Brown  and  his  partners,  for  the 
purpose  of  pushing  Akron  ahead  at  the  expense  of  the  new 


28  JOHN  BROWN 

village,  to  which  the  Brown  and  Thompson  addition  was 
planned  before  the  town  itself  was  well  under  way. 

In  these  and  other  schemes  John  Brown  became  so  deeply 
involved  that  he  failed  during  the  bad  times  of  1837,  lost 
nearly  all  his  property  by  assignment  to  his  creditors,  and 
was  then  not  able  to  pay  all  his  debts,  some  of  which  were 
never  liquidated.  His  father  also  lost  heavily  through  him. 
While  he  says  in  his  autobiography  that  he  "rarely  failed  in 
some  good  degree  to  effect  the  things  he  undertook,"  this  can 
not  apply  to  his  business  affairs  in  the  1835  to  1845  period  of 
his  life,  or  even  later,  but  must  be  taken  as  referring  to  those 
philanthropic  or  public-spirited  undertakings  in  which  he  had 
won  a  name  for  himself  a  short  time  previous  to  that  story  of 
his  life.  In  1842  he  was  even  compelled  to  go  through  bank 
ruptcy.  Naturally,  all  this  greatly  damaged  Brown's  business 
standing,  and  created  with  some  people  who  had  lost  money 
through  him  that  doubt  of  his  integrity  which  so  often  follows 
the  loss  of  money  through  another.  But/the  final  verdict  in 
the  vicinity  of  Franklin  was  summed  up  recently  by  the  late 

arvin  Kent.  To  him  Brown  was  at  this  early  period  a  man 
f  "fast,  stubborn  and  strenuous  convictions  that  nothing 
hort  of  a  mental  rebirth  could  ever  have  altered ; "  a  "man  of 
ordinary  calibre  with  a  propensity  to  business  failure  in  what 
ever  he  attempted."  There  is  no  allegation  of  dishonesty. 
despite  the  unpaid  accounts  and  protested  notes  still  on 
tke^books  ofJVlaryin  Kent  and  his  father.  Heman  Oviatt,  of 
KjirhfjplH,  (TnTo,  who  lent  John  brown  money  and  becarne^in- 
vnlypH  in  1awRi]its_jn__consequence,  testified  to  his  integrity, 
and  so  do  many  others,  but  therecanbe  no  question  that 
aTter  leaving  RichmoncT,  Pennsylvania,  he  was  anything  but 
successful  in  business,  and  his  affairs  became  so  involved  as 
tx)'m?.lc£_i't  a  m.atter  of  rf*gret  that  he  could  not  have  devoted 
himself  exclusively  to  tanning  and  farming  in  Richmond.  To 
his  son,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  he  in  after  years  explained  his  mis- 
fortunes  by  saying  that  these  grew  out  of  one  root  —  doing 
business  on  credit.38  "Instead  of  being  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  doctrine  of  pay  as  you  go,  I  started  out  in  life  with 

'  *  "It  is  a  Brown  trait  to  be  migratory,  sanguine  about  what  they  think  they 
can  do,  to  speculate,  to  go  into  debt,  and  to  make  a  good  many  failures."  —  Jason 
Brown,  December  28,  1908. 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  29 

the  idea  that  nothing  could  be  done  without  capital,  and  that 
a  poor  man  must  use  his  credit  and  borrow;  and  this  pernicious 
notion  has  been  the  rock  on  which  I,  as  well  as  many  others, 
have  split.  The  practical  effect  of  this  false  doctrine  has  been 
to  keep  me  like  a  toad  under  a  harrow  most  of  my  business 
life.  Running  into  debt  includes  so  much  evil  that  I  hope  all 
my  children  will  shun  it  as  they  would  a  pestilence."  Ihe_ 
purchase  of  four  farms  on  r.rpHif-  seems  to  have  been  ^  rhj^f 
cause  of  Brown's  collapse.34  Three  of  these  Franklin  farms 
\vere  said  to  be  worth  twenty  thousand  dollars  before  the 
financial  crash  of  1837. 

Brown  quitted  Franklin  Mills  in  1837,  returning  with  his 
family  to  Hudson,  but  only  for  a  brief  period.  He  seems  to 
have  alternated  between  the  two  places  until  1841.  Onejof 
^his  ventures_at_this-pprir>d  wag  brp^rfing  r^rp-V>r>cc^g  In  1838 
began  his  long  years  of  travelling  about  the  country.  His  first 
recorded  visit  to  New  York,  after  reaching  manhood,  was  on 
December  5,  1838,  when  he  drove  some  cattle  from  Ohio  to 
Connecticut.  "My  unceasing  &  anxious  care  for  the  present 
and  everlasting  welfare  of  every  one  of  my  family  seems  to  be 
threefold  as  I  get  seperated  farther  and  farther  from  them,"  he 
wrote  home  from  the  metropolis.35  On  this  trip  he  negotiated 
for  the  agency  of  a  New  York  steel  scythes  house,  and  on 
the  1 8th  of  January,  at  West  Hartford,  Connecticut,  made 
a  purchase  of  ten  Saxony  sheep  for  one  hundred  and  thirty 
dollars,  —  this  being  the  beginning  of  his  long  career  as  John 
Brown  the  Shepherd.36  Other  purchases  of  Saxony  sheep  fol 
low  in  quick  succession,  according  to  the  entries  in  the  first  of 
a  series  of  notebooks  which  often  did  duty  as  rough  diaries. 
The  sheep  he  seems  to  have4aken  by  boat  to  Albany  and 
driven  thence  to  Ohio;  his  notebook  teems  at  this  time  with 
hints  for  the  care  of  sheep  and  such  quaint  entries  as  the  fol 
lowing:  "Deacon  Abel  Hinsdale  left  off  entirely  the  use  of 
Tobacco  at  the  age  of  66  now  73  &  has  used  none  since  that 
time.  No  ba[d]  consequnses  have  followed.  Qery  When  will  a 
man  become  to  old  to  leave  off  any  bad  habit." 

In  June,  1839,  when  his  family  was  again  in  Franklin  Mills, 
he  made  another  trip  to  the  East  on  cattle  business,  the  fol 
lowing  being  a  typical  home  letter  of  this,  for  him,  so  trying 
and  disastrous  period: 37^ 


30  JOHN  BROWN 

NEWHARTFORD  I2th  June  1839 
MY  DEAR  WIFE  &  CHILDREN 

I  write  to  let  you  know  that  I  am  in  comfortable  health  &  that  I 
expect  to  be  on  my  way  home  in  the  course  of  a  week  should  nothing 
befall  me  If  I  am  longer  detained  I  will  write  you  again.  The  cattle 
business  has  succeeded  about  as  I  expected,  but  I  am  now  some  what 
in  fear  that  I  shall  fail  of  getting  the  money  I  expected  on  the  loan. 
Should  that  be  the  will  of  Providence  I  know  of  no  other  way  but 
we  must  consider  ourselves  verry  poor  for  our  debts  must  be  paid, 
if  paid  at  a  sacrifise.  Should  that  happen  (though  it  may  not)  I  hope 
God  who  is  rich  in  mercy  will  grant  us  all  grace  to  conform  to  our 
circumstances  with  cheerfulness  &  true  resignation.  I  want  to  see 
each  of  my  dear  family  verry  much  but  must  wait  Gods  time.  Try 
all  of  you  to  do  the  best  you  can,  and  do  not  one  of  you  be  discour 
aged,  tomorrow  may  be  a  much  brighter  day.  Cease  not  to  ask  Gods 
blessing  on  yourselves  and  me.  Keep  this  letter  wholly  to  yourselves, 
excepting  that  I  expect  to  start  for  home  soon,  and  that  I  did  not 
write  confidently  about  my  success  should  anyone  enquire  Edward 
is  well,  &  Owen  Mills.  You  may  shew  this  to  my  Father,  but  to  no 
one  else. 

I  am  not  without  great  hopes  of  getting  relief  I  would  not  have 
you  understand,  but  things  have  looked  more  unfavourable  for  a  few 
days.  I  think  I  shall  write  you  again  before  I  start.  Earnestly  com 
mending  you  every  one  to  God,  and  to  his  mercy,  which  endureth 
forever,  I  remain  your  affectionate  husband  and  father 

JOHN  BROWN 

The  friends  here  I  believe  are  all  well. 

J.  B. 

Three  days  after  writing  this  letter,  John  Brown  received 
from  the  New  England  Woolen  Company,  at  Rockville,  Con 
necticut,  the  sum  of  twenty-eight  hundred  dollars  through 
its  agent,  George  Kellogg,  for  the  purchase  of  wool,  which 
money,  regrettably  enough,  he  pledged  for  his  own  benefit  and 
was  then  unable  to  redeem.38  Fortunately  for  him,  the  Com 
pany  exercised  leniency  toward  him,  in  return  for  which 
Brown  promised,  in  1842,  after  having  passed  through  bank 
ruptcy,  to  pay  the  money  from  time  to  time,  with  interest,  as 
Divine  Providence  might  enable  him  to  do.  This  moral  obli 
gation  he  freely  recognized,  as  will  appear  from  the  follow 
ing  letter  to  Mr.  Kellogg,  written  in  1840,  when  Brown  was 
temporarily  in  Hudson  again,  and  in  such  distressing  cir 
cumstances  that  he  had  not  the  means  to  pay  the  postage  for 
forwarding  two  letters  from  Mr.  Kellogg  which  had  been 
sent  to  him  at  Franklin  Mills: 39 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  31 

"That  means  are  so  very  limited  is  in  consequence  of  my  being 
left  penyless  for  the  time  being,  by  the  assignment  and  disposal  of 
my  property  with  no  less  than  a  family  of  ten  children  to  provide  for, 
the  sickness  of  my  wife  and  three  of  my  oldest  children  since  that 
time,  and  the  most  severe  pressure  generally  for  want  of  money  ever 
known  in  this  Country.  Specie  is  almost  out  of  the  question  and  no 
thing  but  specie  will  pay  our  postage.  ...  I  learned  a  good  while 
after  the  delivery  of  the  Flour  and  Wool,  to  my  further  mortification 
and  sorrow  that  they  had  not  been  forwarded  when  I  expected,  but 
was  assured  they  should  be  immediately.  I  hope  they  have  been 
received  safe,  and  I  most  earnestly  hope  that  the  Devine  Providence 
will  yet  enable  me  to  make  you  full  amends  for  all  the  wrong  I  have 
done,  and  to  give  you  and  my  abused  friend  Whitman  (whose  name 
I  feel  ashamed  to  mention)  some  evidence  that  the  injury  I  have 
occasioned  was  not  premeditated  and  intentional  at  least." 

In  pledging  himself  to  pay,  John  Brown  promised  to  prove 
"the  sincerity  of  my  past  professions,  when  legally  free  to  act 
as  I  choose."  40  At^his  death  in  1859,  this  debt  like  many 
another  was  still  unpaid,  and  John  Brown "Ejqii£athed.^fty 
dollars  toward  its  payment  by  his  last  will_aj»d  tfst-aTngnt- N 
It  was  not  only  that  he  was  visionary  as  a  business  man,  but  \ 
that  he  developed  the  fatal  tendency  to  speculate,  doubtless 
an  outgrowth  of  his  restlessness  and  the  usual  desire  of  the    / 
bankrupt  for  a  sudden  coup  to  restore  his  fortunes.  */ 

In  the  intervals  of  sheep  and  cattle  trading,  he  and  his 
father  conceived  the  idea  in  1840  of  taking  up  some  of  the 
Virginia  (now  in  Doddridge  and  Tyler  counties  of  West  Vir 
ginia)  land  belonging  to  Oberlin  College.  He  appeared  April  I, 
1840,  before  a  committee  of  Oberlin  trustees  and  opened  nego 
tiations  with  it  for  the  survey  and  purchase  of  some  of  the 
Virginia  possessions.41  Two  days  later,  the  full  board  con 
sidered  a  letter  from  John  Brown  in  which  he  offered  "to 
visit,  survey  and  make  the  necessary  investigation  respecting 
boundaries,  etc,  of  those  lands,  for  one  dollar  per  day,  and  a 
modest  allowance  for  necessary  expenses."  This  communica 
tion  also  stated  frankly  that  this  was  to  be  a  preliminary  step 
towards  locating  his  family  upon  the  lands,  "should  the  open 
ing  prove  a  favorable  one."  The  trustees  promptly  voted 
to  accept  the  offer,  and  the  treasurer  was  ordered  to  furnish 
John  Brown  with  "a  commission  &  needful  outfit."  This 
was  promptly  done  the  same  day,  and  by  the  27th  of  April, 
Brown  thus  wrote  from  Ripley,  Virginia,  to  his  wife  and  chil- 


'32  JOHN  BROWN 

dren:  "  I  have  seen  the  spot  where,  if  it  be  the  will  of  Provi 
dence,  I  hope  one  day  to  live  with  my  family."  He  liked  the 
country  as  well  as  he  had  expected  to,  "and  its  inhabitants 
rather  better."  Were  they,  he  believed,  "as  resolute  and  in 
dustrious  as  the  Northern  people,  and  did  they  understand 
how  to  manage  as  well,  they  would  become  rich;  but  they  are 
not  generally  so."  That  John  Brown  did  not  subsequently 
settle  on  these  Virginia  lands  is  not,  however,  to  be  charged 
to  the  will  of  Providence,  but  to  himself.  His  surveys  and 
reports  were  duly  received  by  the  Oberlin  trustees  on  July 
14,  1840,  and  on  August  II  they  voted  to  address  a  letter 
to  him  on  the  subject.  Through  his  own  fault,  however,  nego 
tiations  dragged  so  that  the  whole  plan  fell  through.  This 
appears  from  John  Brown's  letters  to  Levi  Burnell,  the  trea 
surer  of  Oberlin,  who  had  duly  notified  him  that  the  Pruden 
tial  Committee  of  the  trustees  had  been  authorized  by  the 
board  to  perfect  negotiations  and  convey  to  "Brother  John 
Brown  of  Hudson  One  Thousand  acres  of  our  Virginia  Land 
on  conditions  suggested  in  the  correspondence  .  .  .  between 
him  and  the  Committee."  On  October  20,  Mr.  Burnell  wrote 
to  Owen  Brown  asking  for  the  status  of  the  negotiations.  He 
received  no  answer  from  John  Brown  until  January  2,  1841. 
This  reply  shows  that  the  latter  had  been  vacillating  through 
out  the  fall  as  to  whether  he  should  or  should  not  move  to 
Virginia,  and  runs  in  part  thus :  ,  i 

11 1  should  have  written  you  before  but  my  time  has  been  com 
pletely  taken  up,  and  owing  to  a  variety  of  circumstances  I  have 
sometimes  allmost  given  up  the  idea  of  going  to  the  south  at  all ;  but 
after  long  reflection,  and  consultation  about  it,  I  feel  prepared  to 
say  definitely  that  I  expect  Providence  willing  to  accept  the  pro 
posal  of  your  Board,  and  that  I  shall  want  every  thing  understood, 
and  aranged  as  nearly  as  may  be,  for  my  removal  in  the  next  Spring. 
I  would  here  say  that  I  shall  expect  to  receive  a  thousand  acres  of 
land  in  a  body  that  will  includ  a  living  spring  of  water  dischargeing 
itself  at  a  heighth  sufficient  to  accommodate  a  tanery  as  I  shall 
expect  to  pursue  that  business  on  the  small  scale  if  I  go.  It  is  my 
regular  occupation.  I  mentioned  several  such  springs  in  my  report, 
but  found  them  very  scarce." 

Meanwhile,  the  college  had  experienced  a  change  of  heart, 
apparently,  because  of  Brown's  procrastination,  as  appears 
from  his  letter  of  February  5,  1841,  to  Mr.  Burnell: 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  33 

HUDSON  5th  Feby"i84i    j 
BURNELL    ESQR 

DR  SR:  I  have  just  returned  from  a  journey  to  Pa,  and  have  read 
yours  of  2Oth  Jany,  &  must  say  that  I  am  somewhat  disappointed 
in  the  information  which  it  brings ;  &  considering  all  that  has  passed, 
that  on  the  part  of  the  Institution  I  had  not  been  called  upon  to 
decide  positively  nor  even  advised  of  any  hurry  for  a  more  definite 
answer ;  &  that  on  my  part  I  had  never  intimated  any  other  than  an 
intention  to  accept  the  offer  made;  nor  called  for  my  pay,  I  should 
think  your  Committee  would  have  done  nearer  the  thing  that  is 
right  had  they  at  least  signified  their  wish  to  know  my  determina 
tion,  before  putting  it  out  of  their  power  to  perform  what  they  had 
engaged.  Probably  I  was  not  so  prompt  in  makeing  up  my  mind 
fully,  &  in  communicating  my  determination  as  I  had  ought  to 
be,  &  if  Providence  intends  to  defeat  my  plans  there  is  no  doubt 
the  best  of  reasons  for  it,  &  we  will  rejoice  that  he  who  directs  the 
steps  of  men  knows  perfectly  well  how  to  direct  them ;  &  will  most 
assuredly  make  his  counsel  to  stand.  A  failure  of  the  consideration 
I  do  not  so  much  regard  as  the  derangement  of  my  plan  of  future 
opperations.  If  the  Virginia  lands  are,  or  are  not  disposed  of,  I  wish 
you  would  give  me  the  earliest  information,  &  in  the  event  of  their 
still  remaining  on  hand  I  suppose  it  not  unreasonable  for  me  still 
to  expect  a  fulfillment  of  the  offer  on  the  part  of  the  Institution. 
Should  the  land  be  conveyed  away  perhaps  your  Committee  or 
some  of  the  friends  might  still  be  instrumental  in  getting  me  an 
employment  at  the  south.  Please  write  me  as  soon  as  you  have 
any  information  to  give 

Respectfully  your  friend 

JOHN  BROWN. 

To  this  letter  no  answer  was  returned.  On  March  26, 
Brown  again  wrote  from  Hudson  asking  whether  the  lands 
had  been  sold.  If  the  committee  no  longer  wished  to  nego 
tiate  with  him,  they  need  only  say  so  frankly  and  send  him 
thirty  dollars  (for  which  he  had  waited  nearly  a  year), 
upon  receipt  of  which  he  would  "consider  the  institution 
discharged  from  all  further  obligation."  Thus  ended  the  first 
plan  for  an  exodus  of  the  John  Brown  family. 

As  a  result  of  this  disappointment,  Brown  was  compelled 
to  turn  to  sheep-herding,  taking  charge  in  the  spring  of  1841 
of  the  flocks  of  Captain  Oviatt  at  Richfield,  Ohio,  and  speed 
ily  becoming  known  as  a  remarkable  shepherd,  able  to  tell 
at  a  glance  the  presence  within  his  flock  of  a  strange  animal. 
This  partnership  arrangement  proving  satisfactory,  Brown 
again  moved  his  family,  in  1842,  to  Richfield,  where  he  had 


34  JOHN  BROWN 

the  great  misfortune  to  lose,  in  1843,  four  of  his  children,  aged 
respectively,  nine,  six,  three  and  one  years,  three  of  them 
being  buried  at  one  time,  —  a  crushing  family  calamity. 
The  beginning  of  the  family's  stay  in  Richfield  was  marked, 
too,  by  Brown's  discharge  as  a  bankrupt,  stripped  of  every 
thing  but  a  few  articles  which  the  court  had  decided  on  Sep 
tember  28,  1842,  were  absolutely  necessary  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  family,  —  among  them  eleven  Bibles  and  Testaments, 
one  volume  entitled  'Beauties  of  the  Bible,'  one  'Church 
Member's  Guide,'  besides  two  mares,  two  cows,  two  hogs, 
three  lambs,  nineteen  hens,  seven  sheep,  and,  last  of  all,  three 
pocket  knives  valued  at  37^  cents.42  Gradually,  Brown  be 
came  well  known  as  a  winner  of  prizes  for  sheep  and  cattle 
at  the  annual  fairs  of  Summit  County,  and  before  his  removal 
from  Richfield  to  Akron,  April  10,  1844,  he  had  established 
a  tannery  which,  at  the  beginning  of  that  year,  was  unable 
to  keep  up  with  the  business  offered  to  it.  This  change  of 
residence  was  due  to  the  establishment  of  a  new  business 
partnership,  the  longest  and  the  final  one  of  John  Brown's 
career.  It  was,  to  quote  him:43 

"  a  copartnership  with  Simon  Perkins,  Jr.,  of  Akron,  with  a  view  to 
carry  on  the  sheep  business  extensively.  He  is  to  furnish  all  the  feed 
and  shelter  for  wintering,  as  a  set-off  against  our  taking  all  the  care 
of  the  flock.  All  other  expenses  we  are  to  share  equally,  and  to  divide 
the  profits  equally.  This  arrangement  will  reduce  our  cash  rents  at 
least  $250  yearly,  and  save  our  hiring  help  in  haying.  We  expect 
to  keep  the  Captain  Oviatt  farm  for  pasturing,  but  my  family  will 
go  into  a  very  good  house  belonging  to  Mr.  Perkins,  —  say  from  a 
half  a  mile  to  a  mile  out  of  Akron.  I  think  this  is  the  most  com 
fortable  and  most  favorable  arrangement  of  my  worldly  concerns 
that  I  ever  had,  and  calculated  to  afford  us  more  leisure  for  im 
provement,  by  day  and  by  night,  than  any  other.  I  do  hope  that 
God  has  enabled  us  to  make  it  in  mercy  to  us,  and  not  that  he 
should  send  leanness  into  our  souls.  .  .  .  This,  I  think,  will  be  con 
sidered  no  mean  alliance  for  our  family,  and  I  most  earnestly  hope 
they  will  have  wisdom  given  to  make  the  most  of  it.  It  is  certainly 
indorsing  the  poor  bankrupt  and  his  family,  three  of  whom  were 
but  recently  in  Akron  jail,  in  a  manner  quite  unexpected,  and  proves 
that  notwithstanding  we  have  been  a  company  of  '  Belted  Knights/ 
our  industrious  and  steady  endeavors  to  maintain  our  integrity 
and  our  character  have  not  been  wholly  overlooked.  Mr.  Perkins 
is  perfectly  advised  of  our  poverty,  and  the  times  that  have  passed 
over  us." 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  35 

John  Brown  was  within  bounds  in  thus  exulting;  the  most 
trying  financial  periods  of  his  life  were  now  behind  him,  even 
though  the  Perkins  partnership  resulted  eventually  in  severe 
losses  and  dissolution.  At  least  it  was  a  connection  with  a 
high-minded  and  prosperous  man,  and  it  lasted  ten  years. 
When  it  was  over,  the  partners  were  still  friends,  but  Mr. 
Perkins  did  not  retain  a  high  opinion  of  John  Brown's  ability 
or  sagacity  as  a  business  man. 

It  was  a  lovely  neighborhood,  this  about  Akron,  to  which 
Brown  now  removed  his  family.  They  occupied  a  cottage 
on  what  is  still  known  as  Perkins  Hill,  near  Simon  Perkins's 
own  home,  with  an  extended  and  charming  view  over  hill 
and  dale,  —  an  ideal  sheep  country,  and  a  location  which 
must  have  attracted  any  one  save  a  predisposed  wanderer. 
Here  the  family  life  went  on  smoothly,  though  not  without 
its  tragedies,  notably  the  death  of  his  daughter  Amelia,  acci 
dentally  scalded  to  death  through  the  carelessness  of  an  elder 
sister.  This  brought  forth  from  the  afflicted  father,  who  was 
absent  in  Springfield,  the  following  letter:44 

SPRINGFIELD  8th  Nov  1846 
Sabbath  evening  ^ 

MY  DEAR  AFFLICTED  WIFE  &  CHILD RCT! 

I  yesterday  at  night  returned  after  an  absence  of  several  days  from 
this  place  &  am  uterly  unable  to  give  any  expression  of  my  feelings 
on  hearing  of  the  dreadful  news  contained  in  Owens  letter  of  the 
3Oth  &  Mr.  Perkins  of  the  3 1st  Oct.  I  seem  to  be  struck  almost 
dumb. 

One  more  dear  little  feeble  child  I  am  to  meet  no  more  till  the 
dead  small  &  great  shall  stand  before  God.  This  is  a  bitter  cup 
indeed,  but  blessed  be  God :  a  brighter  day  shall  dawn ;  &  let  us  not 
sorrow  as  those  that  have  no  hope.  Oh  that  we  that  remain,  had 
wisdom  wisely  to  consider ;  &  to  keep  in  view  our  latter  end.  Divine 
Providence  seems  to  lay  a  heavy  burden;  &  responsibility  on  you 
my  dear  Mary;  but  I  trust  you  will  be  enabled  to  bear  it  in  some 
measure  as  you  ought.  I  exceedingly  regret  that  I  am  unable  to 
return,  &  be  present  to  share  your  trials  with  you :  but  anxious  as  I 
am  to  be  once  more  at  home  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  return  yet. 
I  hope  to  be  able  to  get  away  before  verry  long;  but  cannot  say 
when.  \I  trust  that  none  of  you  will  feel  disposed  to  cast  an  unrea 
sonable  blame  on  my  dear  Ruth  on  account  of  the  dreadful  trial  we 
are  called  [to]  suffer;  for  if  the  want  of  proper  care  in  each,  &  all  of 
us  has  not  been  attended  with  fatal  consequenses  it  is  no  thanks 
to  us.  If  I  had  a  right  sence  of  my  habitual  neglect  of  my  familys 


36  JOHN  BROWN 

Eternal  interests ;  I  should  probably  go  crazy.  I  humbly  hope  this 
dreadful  afflictive  Providence  will  lead  us  all  more  properly  to  ap: 
preciate  the  amazeing,  unforseen,  untold,  consequences ;  that  hang 
upon  the  right  or  wrong  doing  of  things  seemingly  of  trifling  account. 
Who  can  tell  or  comprehend  the  vast  results  for  good,  or  for  evil  \ 
that  are  to  follow  the  saying  of  one  little  word.  Evrything  worthy 
of  being  done  at  all ;  is  worthy  of  being  done  in  good  earnest,  &  in  the 
best  possible  manner.  We  are  in  midling  health  &  expect  to  write 
some  of  you  again  soon.  Our  warmest  thanks  to  our  kind  friends 
Mr.  &  Mrs.  Perkins  &  family.  From  your  affectionate  husband,  & 
father 

JOHN  BROWN 

While  Brown's  self-accusation  of  " habitual  neglect"  is 
no  more  to  be  borne  out  than  his  father's  charging  himself 
with  a  wasted  life,  it  is  true  that  some  of  his  neighbors  won 
dered  that  he  did  not  give  more  time  to  his  family.  That 
Akron  home  he  ruled,  as  he  did  the  later  one  at  Springfield, 
with  iron  firmness  and  complete  mastery,  and  as  long  as  the 
children  were  with  him  they  were  under  strict  discipline, 
although  the  cane  figured  now  but  little.  This  was  a  relief  to 
him  as  well  as  to  his  sons,  for  it  is  related  of  him  that  after 
he  had  given  only  a  certain  part  of  some  blows  he  meant  to 
bestow,  he  gave  his  whip  to  his  son  and  bade  him  strike  his 
father.45  Yet  he  exacted  loyalty  of  his  children  as  he  did 
fealty  from  his  animals.  It  is  a  widely  believed  story  in  Akron 
to  this  day  that  John  Brown  once  shot  —  to  the  horror  of 
the  children  —  a  valuable  shepherd  dog,  because  it  was  so 
fond  of  the  Perkins  children  as  to  be  unwilling  to  stay  at 
home.  It  is  similarly  narrated  that  he  compelled  his  wife  to 
ride  to  church  with  him  on  a  pillion  on  a  young  and  unbroken 
horse  he  wished  to  tame,  with  the  result  that  she  was  twice 
thrown.46  One  thing  is  beyond  doubt:  but  little  reference 
to  his  children's  schooling  appears  in  his  letters,  if  we  except 
those  written  to  his  daughter  Ruth  while  she  was  away  at 
school.  Only  John  Brown,  Jr.,  obtained  special  educational 
advantages. 

While  the  family  life  flowed  on  in  this  wise,  the  aftermath 
/of  its  head's  business  failure  remained  to  plague  him  in  the 
shape  of  many  lawsuits.  Oti-thp  records  of  trip  Portage 
County  Court  of  Common  Pleas  at  Ravenna,  Ohio,  are  no 
less  than  twenty-one  lawsuits  in  which  John  Brown  figured 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  37 

as  defendant  during  the  years  from  1820  to  1845. 47  Of  these, 
^thirteen  were  actions  brought  to  recover  money,  loaned  nj 
promissory  notes  either  to  brown  singly  or  in  company  with 
'others.  Ihe  remaining  builb  wei e  irrosttVfor  claims  for  wageg" 
or  payments  due,  or  for  non-fL-lfilment  ofcontracts^  Judg 
ment  against  Brown  was^onge.  entered  hy  his  rodent  for  a 
nominal  sum,  and  another  case  was  an  amicable  suit  in  debt. 
In  ten  other  cases  he  was  successfully  sued  arid  judgments 
were  obtained  against  him  individually  or  jointly  with  others. 
In  three  cases  those  who  sued  him  were  "  non-suited "  as 
being  without  real  cause  for  action,  and  two  other  cases  were 
settled  out  of  court.  Four  ca^es  Brown  won,  among  them 
being  a  suit  for  damages  for  false  arrest  and  assault  and  bat 
tery,  brought  by  an  alleged  horse-thief  because  Brown  and 
other  citizens  had  aided  a  constable  in  arresting  him.  A  num 
ber  of  these  suits  grew  out  of  Brown's  failure  and  his  real 
estate  speculations.  A  serious^itigation  was  an  action  brought 
by  the  Bank  of  Wooster  to  recover  on  a  bill  of  exchange  drawn 
by  Brown  and  others  on  the  Leather  Manufacturers  Bank  of 
New  York,  and  repudiated  by  that  institution  on  the  ground 
that  Brown  and  his  associates  had  no  money  in  the  bank. 
During  the  suit  the  original  amount  claimed  was  rapidly  re 
duced,  and  when  the  judgment  against  Brown  and  his  associ 
ates  was  rendered,  it  was  for  $917.65.  In  June,  1842,  Brown 
was  sued  by  Tertius  Wadsworth  and  Joseph  Wells,  in  partner 
ship  with  whom  he  had  been  buying  and  driving  cattle  to 
Connecticut.  In  1845,  Daniel  C.  Gaylord,  who  several  times 
had  sued  Brown,  succeeded  in  compelling  Brown  and  his  as 
sociates  to  convey  to  him  certain  Franklin  lands  which  they 
had  contracted  to  sell,  but  the  title  for  which  they  refused 
to  convey.  The  court  upheld  Gaylord's  claim.  The  only  case 
in  which  Brown  figured  as  plaintiff  was  settled  out  of  court 
in  his  favor. 

But  the  most  important  suit  of  Brown's  business  life,  and 
the  one  which  has  been  oftenest  cited  to  injure  his  business 
reputation,  was  a  complicated  one  which  grew  out  of  one 
of  these  Ravenna  cases.48  On  July  n,  1836,  he  applied  to 
Heman  Oviatt,  Frederick  Brown,  Joshua  Stow  and  three 
brothers  of  the  name  of  Wetmore,  to  become  security  for  him 
on  a  note  to  the  Western  Reserve  Bank  for  $6000.  The  note 


38  JOHN  /BROWN 

not  being  paid,  the  bank  sued  and  obtained  judgment  against 
all  of  them  in  May,  1837,  ahd  on  August  2,  1837,  they  all 
gave  their  joint  judgment  bohd  to  the  bank,  payable  in  sixty 
days.  This  not  being  paid,  the  bank  again  sued,  and,  an 
execution  being  issued,  Heman  Oviatt  was  compelled  to  pay 
the  bank  in  full.  He  then  in  turn  sued  John  Brown  and 
his  fellow  endorsers.  The  litigation  which  followed  was 
greatly  complicated  by  Brown's  actions  in  connection  with 
a  piece  of  property  known  as  Westlands,  for  which  he  had  at 
first  not  the  title,  but  a  penal  bond  of  conveyance.  Brown 
gave  this  bond  to  Oviatt  as  collateral  for  Oviatt's  having  en 
dorsed  the  judgment  bond  to,  the  bank.  When  the  deed  for 
the  Westlands  property  was  duly  given  to  Brown,  he  recorded 
it  without  notifying  Oviatt  of  this  action.  Later,  he  mortgaged 
this  property  to  two  men,  again  without  the  knowledge  of 
Heman  Oviatt.  Meanwhile  Daniel  C.  Gaylord  had  recovered 
judgment  against  Brown  in  another  transaction,  and  to  sat 
isfy  it,  caused  the  sale  of  Westidnds  by  the  sheriff.  At  John 
Brown's  request,  Amos  P.  Chamberlain,  heretofore  a  warm 
friend  and  business  associate  of  Brown's,  bought  in  the  pro 
perty  at  the  sheriff's  sale,  doubtless  with  the  idea  that  Brown 
would  presently  find  the  money  to  buy  it  back  for  himself. 
But  as  soon  as  Oviatt  was  compelled  to  pay  off  the  judgment 
bond  at  the  Western  Reserve  Bank,  he  naturally  wished  to 
reimburse  himself  by  the  penal  bond  of  conveyance  of  West- 
lands,  which,  he  felt,  gave  him  the  title  to  the  property.  Find 
ing  that,  through  the  land  transactions  already  related,  the 
penal  bond  had  become  valueless,  he  brought  suit  to  have 
the  sale  of  Westlands  to  Chamberlain  set  aside  as  fraudulent. 
The  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  held  that  Chamberlain  had  a 
rightful  title  and  dismissed  the  suit.  John  Brown  himself  was 
not  directly  sued  by  Oviatt,  being,  to  use  a  lawyer's  term, 
*  ^legally  safe"  throughout  the  entire  transaction.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  probity  and  fair  play  he  does  not,  however, 
escape  criticism.  He  was  morally  bound  to  reimburse  those 
who  had  aided  him  to  obtain  the  money  from  the  bank  and 
had  suffered  thereby.  Even  after  this  lapse  of  years,  his  action 
in  secretly  recording  the  transfer  of  the  land  and  then  mort 
gaging  it  bears  an  unpleasant  aspect.  It  is  quite  probable  that 
this  complication  was  due  to  the  great  confusion  of  Brown's 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  39 

affairs,  and  his  own  poor  business  head.  Moreover,  it  may 
well  be  that  in  due  course  Oviatt  and  the  other  securities 
were  repaid  in  full  by  Brown  during  his  period  of  prosperity 
with  Mr.  Perkins.  Certainly,  as  already  stated,  Heman  Oviatt 
bore  Brown  no  grudge  in  after  years.  On  the  other  hand, 
Brown  may  have  taken  advantage  of  the  bankruptcy  pro 
ceedings  to  escape  liability  for  these  debts. 

The  story  of  this  case  does  not,  however,  end  here.  John 
Brown  refused  for  a  time  to  give  up  Westlands  to  Amos  Cham 
berlain,  believing  that  he  had  the  right  to  pasture  his  cattle 
there  temporarily,  and  still,  apparently,  thinking  that  Cham 
berlain  had  purchased  the  farm  not  for  occupancy  but  for 
the  purpose  of  turning  it  back  to  him.  After  having  repeat 
edly  summoned  Chamberlain  for  trespass  on  the  land  which 
Chamberlain  had  actually  purchased,  John  Brown  and  his 
sons  held  a  shanty  on  the  place  by  force  of  arms  until  com 
pelled  to  desist  by  the  arrival  of  the  sheriff  summoned  by 
Chamberlain.  According  to  the  Chamberlain  family,  John 
Brown  ordered  his  sons  to  shoot  Chamberlain  if  he  set  foot 
on  the  farm,  —  a  statement  vigorously  denied  by  John  Brown, 
Jr.  Jason  Brown  recollects  that  "  father  put  us  all  in  the 
cabin  on  the  farm  with  some  old-fashioned  muskets  and  we 
stayed  in  it  night  and  day.  Then  Mr.  Chamberlain  sued 
father  and  sent  a  constable  and  his  posse  to  drive  us  out. 
We  showed  them  our  guns.  Then  he  got  the  sheriff  of  Port 
age  County  to  come  out  and  arrest  us.  Of  course  we  could 
not  resist  the  sheriff."  Finally  the  sheriff  arrested  John  Brown 
and  two  sons,  John  and  Owen,  who  were  thereupon  placed 
in  the  Akron  jail.  Chamberlain,  having  destroyed  the  shanty 
which  Brown  had  occupied  and  obtained  possession  of  the 
land,  allowed  the  case  to  drop,  and  Brown  and  his  sons  were 
released.49 

Fortunately  for  John  Brown's  side  of  the  case,  there  has 
just  come  to  light  a  letter  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Chamberlain  in 
order  to  prevent,  if  possible,  the  carrying  on  of  a  long  litigation. 
It  records  the  spirit  in  which  John  Brown  acted,  and  proves 
him  to  have  been  sincerely  of  the  opinion  that  he  had  been 
gravely  wronged,  and  that,  in  holding  his  farm  as  he  did,  Mr. 
Chamberlain  not  only  injured  Brown,  but  also  the  latter's 
innocent  creditors.  No  one  can  maintain,  after  the  perusal 


40  JOHN  BROWN 

of  this  communication,  that  Brown  was  unreasoning  in  the 
matter,  or  that  he  was  deliberately  trying  to  defraud  a  neigh 
bor  of  land  righteously  purchased.  It  is  altogether  likely  that 
if  similar  documents  in  regard  to  the  other  cases  cited,  which 
appear,  on  the  surface,  to  make  against  John  Brown's  probity, 
could  be  found,  these  other  entanglements  would  also  be 
susceptible  of  a  far  better  interpretation.  The  letter  to  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  offering  peace  or  arbitration  before  war,  reads 
as  follows:50 

HUDSON  27th  April  1841 

MR.  AMOS  CHAMBERLAIN 
DEAR  SIR 

I  was  yesterday  makeing  preparation  for  the  commencement 
and  vigorous  prosecution  of  a  tedious,  distressing,  wasteing,  and 
long  protracted  war,  but  after  hearing  by  my  son  of  some  remarks 
you  made  to  him  I  am  induced  before  I  proceed  any  further  in  the 
way  of  hostile  preparation:  to  stop  and  make  one  more  earnest 
effort  for  Peace  And  let  me  begin  by  assureing  you  that  notwith 
standing  I  feel  myself  to  be  deeply  and  sorely  injured  by  you,  (with 
out  even  the  shadow  of  a  provocation  on  my  part  to  tempt  you 
to  begin  as  you  did  last  October;)  I  have  no  conciousness  of  wish 
to  injure  either  yourself  or  any  of  your  family  nor  to  interfere  with 
your  happiness,  no  not  even  to  value  of  one  hair  of  your  head.  I 
perfectly  well  remember  the  uniform  good  understanding  and  good 
feeling  which  had  ever  (previous  to  last  fall)  existed  between  us 
from  our  youth.  I  have  not  forgotten  the  days  of  cheerful  labour 
which  we  have  performed  together,  nor  the  acts  of  mutual  kindness 
and  accomodation  which  have  passed  between  us.  I  can  assure  you 
that  I  ever  have  been  and  still  am  your  honest,  hearty  friend.  I 
have  looked  with  sincere  gratification  uppon  your  steady  growing 
prosperity,  and  flattering  prospects  of  your  young  family.  I  have 
made  your  happiness  and  prosperity  my  own  instead  of  feeling 
envious  at  your  success.  When  I  antisipated  a  return  to  Hudson 
with  my  family  I  expected  great  satisfaction  from  again  haveing 
you  for  a  neighbour.  This  is  true  whatever  you  may  think  of  me,  or 
whatever  representation  you  may  make  of  me  to  others.  And  now 
I  ask  you  why  will  you  trample  on  the  rights  of  your  friend  and  of  his 
numerous  family?  Is  it  because  he  is  poor?  Why  will  you  kneed- 
lessly  make  yourself  the  means  of  depriveing  all  my  honest  creditors 
of  their  Just  due?  Ought  not  my  property  if  it  must  be  sacrifised  to 
fall  into  the  hands  of  honest  and  some  of  them  poor  and  suffering 
Creditors?  Will  God  smile  on  the  gains  which  you  may  acquire  at 
the  expence  of  suffering  families  deprived  of  their  honest  dues?  And 
let  me  here  ask  Have  you  since  you  bid  off  that  farm  felt  the  same 
inward  peace  and  conciousness  of  right  you  had  before  felt?  I  do 
not  believe  you  have,  and  for  this  plain  reason  that  you  have  been 


THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN  41 

industrious  in  circulateing  evil  reports  of  me  (as  I  believe)  in  order  to 
prevent  the  community  from  enquiring  into  your  motives  and  con 
duct.  This  is  perfectly  natural,  and  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.  If 
it  could  be  made  to  appear  that  Naboth  the  Jezreelite  had  blas 
phemed  God  and  the  King,  then  it  would  be  perfectly  right  for  Ahab 
to  possess  his  vineyard.  So  reasoned  wicked  men  thousands  of  years 
ago.  I  ask  my  old  friend  again  is  your  path  a  path  of  peace?  does 
it  promise  peace?  I  have  two  definite  things  to  offer  you  once  and 
for  all.  One  is  that  you  take  ample  security  of  Seth  Thompson  for 
what  you  have  paid  and  for  what  you  may  have  to  pay  (which 
D.  C.  Gaylord  has  ever  wickedly  refused)  and  release  my  farm  and 
thereby  provide  for  yourself  an  honorable  and  secure  retreat  out  of 
the  strife  and  perplexity  and  restore  you  to  peace  with  your  friends 
and  with  yourself.  The  other  is  that  if  you  do  not  like  that  offer, 
that  you  submit  the  matter  to  disinterested,  discreet,  and  good  men 
to  say  what  is  just  and  honest  between  us. 

You  may  ask  why  do  not  you  go  to  Thompson  for  your  relief.  I 
answer  that  I  should  do  so  at  once,  but  I  cannot  recover  anything  of 
Thompson  but  the  face  of  the  note  and  interest,  nothing  for  all  the 
costs,  and  expences,  and  penalties  and  sacrifise  of  my  property. 
All  Thompson  is  either  morally  or  legally  bound  to  pay  is  the  note 
and  interest.  He  is  an  inocent  and  honest  debtor  and  when  in  his  low 
state  of  health,  and  the  extreme  pressure  he  could  not  pay  the  money 
promptly  came  forward  [and]  offered  his  land  as  security.  That 
security  is  still  kept  for  the  purpose,  as  I  positively  know  any  state 
ments  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

I  now  ask  you  to  read  this  letter  calmly,  and  patiently,  and  often, 
and  show  it  to  your  neighbours,  and  friends,  such  as  Mr.  Zina  Post 
and  many  other  worthy  men  and  advise  with  them  before  you  at 
tempt  to  force  your  way  any  further.  I  ask  you  to  make  it  your  first 
business  and  give  me  without  delay  your  final  determination  in 
regard  to  it. 

Respectfully  your  friend 

JOHN  BROWN. 

This  appeal  to  reason  and  friendliness  ought  to  have  soft 
ened  Mr.  Chamberlain's  heart.  No  one  now  knows  just  what 
the  result  was;  but  since  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  "tedious, 
distressing,  wasteing,  and  long  protracted  war"  between  the 
neighbors,  it  is  likely  that  it  had  its  effect.  At  any  rate,  it 
closes  a  chapter  of  John  Brown's  business  life  which,  besides 
occasioning  him  deep  and  poignant  distress,  left  its  marks 
upon  him.  Had  he  not,  however,  been  withal  a  strong,  seri 
ous  and  fundamentally  honest  character,  he  must  have  been 
completely  wrecked  upon  the  shoals  out  of  which,  with  Mr. 
Perkins's  aid,  he  was  now  to  find  his  way. 


CHAPTER  II 
"HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT" 

WHEN  was  it  that  John  Brown,  practical  shepherd,  tanner, 
farmer,  surveyor,  cattle  expert,  real  estate  speculator  and 
wool-merchant,  first  conceived  what  he  calls  in  his  autobio 
graphy  "his  greatest  or  principal  object"  in  life  —  the  forci 
ble  overthrow  of  slavery  in  his  native  land?  The  question 
is  not  an  idle  one,  since  the  object  adopted  as  the  magnetic 
needle  to  guide  his  destiny  eventually  resulted  in  the  rousing 
of  a  nation  to  its  smallest  hamlet,  and  beyond  doubt  pre 
cipitated  the  bloody  civil  war  which  others  besides  John 
Brown  clearly  foresaw.  The  mystery  of  individuality  does 
not  lose  anything  of  its  spell  with  the  passage  of  time;  in 
the  case  of  this  strongly  marked  character,  there  is  nothing 
concerning  it  of  greater  interest  than  the  transformation  of 
the  simple  guardian  of  flocks  and  tiller  of  the  soil,  Spartan 
in  his  rugged  simplicity  of  living,  into  an  arch-plotter,  a 
man  of  many  disguises,  a  belligerent  pioneer,  a  fugitive  be 
fore  the  law  at  one  moment  and  an  assailant  of  a  sovereign 
government  in  the  next.  Psychologists  must  find  in  such  an 
evolution  of  spirit  a  field  for  inquiry  and  speculation  without 
end.  Why  should  one  who  so  hated  the  profession  of  arms  be 
the  first  to  take  it  up  in  order  to  free  the  slave  from  his  chains? 
What  was  there  in  the  humdrum  life  of  an  Ohio  farmer  to 
cause  him  to  espouse  the  role  of  a  border-chieftain  in  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century?  From  what  midnight  star 
did  this  shepherd  draw  his  inspiration  to  go  forth  and  kill? 
What  was  there  in  the  process  of  tanning  to  make  a  man  who 
had  never  seen  blood  spilt  in  anger  ready  to  blot  out  the  lives 
of  other  beings  whose  chief  crime  was  that  they  differed  with 
him  as  to  the  righteousness  of  human  bondage?  Why  should 
the  restless  iron  spirit  of  the  Roundhead  suddenly  have  mani 
fested  itself  in  this  prosaic  seller  of  town  lots  when  he  had 
spent  more  than  five  decades  in  peace  and  quiet?  Doubtless 
the  answer  to  some  of  these  questions  must  be  left  to  the  new 
science  which  would  plot  and  chart  the  soul,  and  measure  to 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       43 

the  hundredth  of  a  degree  each  quivering  emotion.  But  the 
historian  may  properly  inquire  when  it  was  that  the  "greatest 
or  principal  object"  of  this  militant  reformer's  life  first  began 
to  manifest  itself  in  his  acts  and  deeds. 

John  Brown's  horror  of  the  South's  "peculiar  institution," 
as  it  affected  individuals,  we  know  to  have  come  to  him,  as 
the  autobiography  again  testifies,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  when, 
he  says,  he  declared,  or  swore,  "eternal  war  with  slavery." 
But  the  oaths  of  a  lad  of  such  tender  years  do  not  often  be 
come  the  guiding  force  of  maturity;  in  John  Brown's  case, 
not  even  his  constant  friendliness  to  fugitive  slaves  permits 
the  assumption  that  early  in  his  manhood  he  had  definitely 
resolved  upon  the  plan  of  overthrowing  slavery  by  men  and 
arms  which  he  finally  chose.  Not  until  his  thirty-fifth  year 
is  there  direct  documentary  evidence  that  his  mind  was  espe 
cially  concerning  itself  with  the  welfare  of  the  black  man  in 
bondage,  —  that  is,  to  any  greater  extent  than  were  the  minds 
and  consciences  of  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  Ohio  farmers 
who  were  later  among  the  strongest  enemies  of  human  bond 
age,  and  even  then  were  dauntless  station-masters  and  con 
ductors  on  the  rapidly  expanding  Underground  Railroad.  In 
November,  1834,  when  John  Brown's  stay  in  Pennsylvania 
was  actually  within  six  months  of  its  close,  when  he  was, 
however,  apparently  to  remain  in  Richmond  as  a  successful 
tanner  and  farmer,  he  first  expressed  on  paper  a  wish  to  aid 
his  fellow- Americans  in  chains.  It  is  in  the  following  epistle 
to  his  brother  Frederick,  unstamped  because  it  bears  the 
frank  of  John  Brown,  then  still  postmaster  at  Randolph,  of 
which  Richmond  was  a  part : l 

RANDOLPH,  Nov.  21,  1834.    ' 

DEAR  BROTHER,  —  As  I  have  had  only  one  letter  from  Hudson 
since  you  left  here,  and  that  some  weeks  since,  I  begin  to  get  uneasy 
and  apprehensive  that  all  is  not  well.  I  had  satisfied  my  mind  about 
it  for  some  time,  in  expectation  of  seeing  father  here,  but  I  begin  to 
give  that  up  for  the  present.  Since  you  left  here  I  have  been  trying 
to  devise  some  means  whereby  I  might  do  something  in  a  practical 
way  for  my  poor  fellow-men  who  are  in  bondage,  and  having  fully 
consulted  the  feelings  of  my  wife  and  my  three  boys,  we  have  agreed 
to  get  at  least  one  negro  boy  or  youth,  and  bring  him  up  as  we  do 
our  own,  —  viz.,  give  him  a  good  English  education,  learn  him  what 
we  can  about  the  history  of  the  world,  about  business,  about  general 


44  JOHN  BROWN 

subjects,  and,  above  all,  try  to  teach  him  the  fear  of  God.  We  think 
of  three  ways  to  obtain  one:  First,  to  try  to  get  some  Christian 
slave-holder  to  release  one  to  us.  Second,  to  get  a  free  one  if  no  one 
will  let  us  have  one  that  is  a  slave.  Third,  if  that  does  not  succeed, 
we  have  all  agreed  to  submit  to  considerable  privation  in  order  to 
buy  one.  This  we  are  now  using  means  in  order  to  effect,  in  the  con 
fident  expectation  that  God  is  about  to  bring  them  all  out  of  the 
house  of  bondage. 

I  will  just  mention  that  when  this  subject  was  first  introduced, 
Jason  had  gone  to  bed;  but  no  sooner  did  he  hear  the  thing  hinted, 
than  his  warm  heart  kindled,  and  he  turned  out  to  have  a  part  in 
the  discussion  of  a  subject  of  such  exceeding  interest.  I  have  for 
years  been  trying  to  devise  some  way  to  get  a  school  a-going  here 
for  blacks,  and  I  think  that  on  many  accounts  it  would  be  a  most 
favorable  location.  Children  here  would  have  no  intercourse  with 
vicious  people  of  their  own  kind,  nor  with  openly  vicious  persons 
of  any  kind.  There  would  be  no  powerful  opposition  influence 
against  such  a  thing;  and  should  there  be  any,  I  believe  the  settle 
ment  might  be  so  effected  in  future  as  to  have  almost  the  whole  in 
fluence  of  the  place  in  favor  of  such  a  school.  Write  me  how  you 
would  like  to  join  me,  and  try  to  get  on  from  Hudson  and  there 
abouts  some  firstrate  abolitionist  families  with  you.  I  do  honestly 
believe  that  our  united  exertions  alone  might  soon,  with  the  good 
hand  of  our  God  upon  us,  effect  it  all. 

This  has  been  with  me  a  favorite  theme  of  reflection  for  years. 
I  think  that  a  place  which  might  be  in  some  measure  settled  with 
a  view  to  such  an  object  would  be  much  more  favorable  to  such 
an  undertaking  than  would  any  such  place  as  Hudson,  with  all  its 
conflicting  interests  and  feelings;  and  I  do  think  such  advantages 
ought  to  be  afforded  the  young  blacks,  whether  they  are  all  to  be 
immediately  set  free  or  not.  Perhaps  we  might,  under  God,  in 
that  way  do  more  towards  breaking  their  yoke  effectually  than 
in  any  other.  If  the  young  blacks  of  our  country  could  once  be 
come  enlightened,  it  would  most  assuredly  operate  on  slavery  like 
firing  powder  confined  in  rock,  and  all  slaveholders  know  it  well. 
Witness  their  heaven-daring  laws  against  teaching  blacks.  If  once 
the  Christians  in  the  free  States  would  set  to  work  in  earnest  in 
teaching  the  blacks,  the  people  of  the  slaveholding  States  would 
find  themselves  constitutionally  driven  to  set  about  the  work  of 
emancipation  immediately.  The  laws  of  this  State  are  now  such 
that  the  inhabitants  of  any  township  may  raise  by  a  tax  in  aid  of 
the  State  school-fund  any  amount  of  money  they  may  choose  by 
a  vote,  for  the  purpose  of  common  schools,  which  any  child  may 
have  access  to  by  application.  If  you  will  join  me  in  this  under 
taking,  I  will  make  with  you  any  arrangement  of  our  temporal 
concerns  that  shall  be  fair.  Our  health  is  good,  and  our  prospects 
about  business  rather  brightening. 

Affectionately  yours,  JOHN  BROWN. 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       45 

It  will  be  noticed,  as  has  heretofore  been  pointed  out,2  that 
there  is  here  a  total  absence  of  any  belligerent  intention 
on  the  writer's  part;  he  who  afterwards  became  disgusted 
with  the  Abolitionists  because  their  propaganda  involved  talk 
alone,  and  no  violent  physical  action  against  slavery,  was 
planning,  when  nearly  thirty-five,  nothing  more  startling  than 
a  school  for  blacks,  confident  in  the  belief  that  their  educa 
tion  in  the  North  would  shatter  the  whole  system  of  slavery  in 
the  South,  and  turning  for  aid  exclusively  to  friends  in  his 
former  Ohio  home.  Again,  he  shows  no  knowledge  of  the  pre 
judice  in  the  North  against  teaching  blacks  which  had  resulted 
in  his  native  State  in  the  suppression  of  schools  for  them  in 
New  Haven  in  1831,  and  in  Canterbury  in  1834.  Throughout 
his  correspondence  of  these  years,  and  later,  there  is  little 
to  indicate  that  Brown  was  in  touch  with  much  of  what  was 
going  on  in  the  nation.  Indeed,  as  late  as  June  22,  1844,  he 
wrote  to  his  family,  "I  am  extremely  ignorant  at  present  of 
miscellaneous  subjects."3  It  is  the  recollection  of  the  family, 
however,  that  before  this  time  they  were  called  upon  by  their 
father  to  take  a  solemn  oath  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  abolish 
slavery,  after  hearing  from  him  of  his  purpose  of  attacking 
the  institution.  Jason  Brown  fixes  the  date  of  this  event  at 
1839,  the  place  as  Franklin,  and  those  who  were  party  to  it 
as  Mrs.  Brown,  a  colored  preacher,  Fayette  by  name,  and 
the  three  sons,  John,  Jr.,  Jason  and  Owen.  He  specifies  merely 
that  they  were  sworn  "to  do  all  in  their  power  to  abolish 
slavery,"  and  does  not  use  the  word  "  force."  John  Brown,  Jr., 
writing  to  F.  B.  Sanborn  in  December,  1890,  thus  expressed 
his  opinion : 4 

"It  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  me  to  say  when  such  idea  and 
plan  first  entered  his  [John  Brown's]  mind  and  became  a  purpose; 
but  I  can  say  with  certainty  that  he  first  informed  his  family  that 
he  entertained  such  purpose  while  we  were  yet  living  in  Franklin, 
O.  (now  called  Kent),  and  before  he  went  to  Virginia,  in  1840,  to 
survey  the  lands  which  had  been  donated  by  Arthur  Tappan  to 
Oberlin  College;  and  this  was  certainly  as  early  as  1839.  The  place 
and  the  circumstances  where  he  first  informed  us  of  that  purppse 
are  as  perfectly  in  my  memory  as  any  other  event  in  my  life,  ra 
ther,  mother,  Jason,  Owen  and  I  were,  late  in  the  evening,  seated 
around  the  fire  in  the  open  fire-place  of  the  kitchen,  in  the  old 
Haymaker  house  where  we  then  lived ;  and  there  he  first  informed 


46  JOHN  BROWN 

us  of  his  determination  to  make  war  on  slavery — not  such  war  as 
Mr.  Garrison*  informs  us  'was  equally  the  purpose  of  the  non- 
resistant  abolitionists,'  but  war  by  force  and  arms.  He  said  that 
he  had  long  entertained  such  a  purpose  —  that  he  believed  it  his 
duty  to  devote  his  life,  if  need  be,  to  this  object,  which  he  made  us 
fully  to  understand.  After  spending  considerable  time  in  setting 
forth  in  most  impressive  language  the  hopeless  condition  of  the 
slave,  he  asked  who  of  us  were  willing  to  make  common  cause  with 
him  in  doing  all  in  our  power  to  'break  the  jaws  of  the  wicked  and 
pluck  the  spoil  out  of  his  teeth,'  naming  each  of  us  in  succession, 
Are  you,  Mary,  John,  Jason,  and  Owen?  Receiving  an  affirmative 
answer  from  each,  he  kneeled  in  prayer,  and  all  did  the  same.  This 
posture  in  prayer  impressed  me  greatly  as  it  was  the  first  time  I 
had  ever  known  him  to  assume  it.  After  prayer  he  asked  us  to  raise 
our  right  hands,  and  he  then  administered  to  us  an  oath,  the  exact 
terms  of  which  I  cannot  recall,  but  in  substance  it  bound  us  to 
secrecy  and  devotion  to  the  purpose  of  fighting  slavery  by  force 
and  arms  to  the  extent  of  our  ability.  According  to  Jason's  recol 
lections,  Mr.  Fayette,  a  colored  theological  student  at  Western 
Reserve  College,  Hudson,  Ohio,  was  with  us  at  the  time  but  of  this 
I  am  not  certain." 

It  must  be  noted  here  that  in  this  letter  John  Brown,  Jr., 
gives  the  date  of  the  oath  as  1839;  in  his  lengthy  affidavit  in 
the  case  of  Gerrit  Smith  against  the  Chicago  Tribune,  he 
gave  the  date  as  1836,  three  years  earlier,  and  in  an  account 
given  in  Mr.  Sanborn's  book  he  placed  it  at  1837;  three  dis 
tinct  times  for  the  same  event.  It  can,  therefore,  best  be 
staged  as  occurring  before  i84O.5  At  this  time,  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  was  in  his  nineteenth  year,  Jason  about  sixteen  years 
old,  and  Owen  between  fourteen  and  fifteen.  The  only  tes 
timony  as  to  an  early  project  akin  to  that  of  the  final  raid, 
available  from  any  one  else  outside  the  family,  is  that  of 
George  B.  Delamater,6  who  says,  "Having  spent  several  days 
and  nights  with  Old  John  Brown  at  various  times  between 
1840  and  1844,  I  enjoyed  his  society  and  was  made  acquainted 
with  his  views  in  regard  to  American  slavery  and  its  rela 
tions  at  that  time  from  various  standpoints,  and  also  with 
the  scheme  which  he  had  under  consideration  for  freeing 
persons  held  in  bondage."  Mr.  Delamater  at  this  period  was 
a  mere  stripling;  it  is  an  interesting  contrast  to  his  recollec 
tions  that  Mr.  Foreman,  in  his  long  account  of  John  Brown's 

*  Wendell  Phillips  Garrison,  in  The  Preludes  of  Harper's  Ferry. 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       47 

stay  at  Richmond  from  1825  to  1835,  makes  no  mention  of 
having  heard  of  any  deliberate  project;  yet  he  was  much 
older  and  more  intimate  with  Brown  than  was  Mr.  Delamater, 
who,  in  this  earlier  Richmond  period,  was  only  a  school-boy. 
That  the  subject  was  undoubtedly  much  in  his  mind  prior 
to  this  appears  again  from  an  anecdote  related  by  General 
Henry  B.  Carrington,  and  placed  by  him  in  the  year  1836, 
although  probably  occurring  in  1838,  when  there  is  the  first 
definite  record  of  John  Brown's  having  been  in  Connecticut 
after  his  school  days.  General  Carrington  thus  tells  this  inci 
dent  of  his  boyhood:7 

"  When  I  was  a  boy  and  went  to  school  in  Torrington,  there  came 
into  the  school  room  one  day  a  tall  man,  rather  slender,  with  gray 
ish  hair,  who  said  to  the  boys :  '  I  want  to  ask  you  some  questions 
in  geography.  Where  is  Africa?'  'It  is  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ocean, of  course, 'said  a  boy.  'Why  "of  course,"  '  asked  the  man. 
The  boy  could  n't  say  why  'of  course.'  Then  the  man  proceeded  to 
tell  them  something  about  Africa  and  the  negroes,  and  the  evil  of 
the  slave  trade,  and  the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  the  slaves,  and 
then  said,  'How  many  of  you  boys  will  agree  to  use  your  influence, 
whatever  it  may  be,  against  this  great  curse,  when  you  grow  up?' 
They  held  up  their  hands.  He  then  said  that  he  was  afraid  that 
some  of  them  might  forget  it,  and  added,  'Now  I  want  those  who 
are  quite  sure  that  they  will  not  forget  it,  who  will  promise  to  use 
their  time  and  influence  toward  resisting  this  evil,  to  rise.'  Another 
boy  and  I  stood  up.  Then  this  man  put  his  hands  on  our  heads 
and  said,  'Now  may  my  Father  in  Heaven,  who  is  your  Father,  and 
who  is  the  Father  of  the  African;  and  Christ,  who  is  my  Master 
and  Saviour,  and  your  Master  and  Saviour,  and  the  Master  and 
Saviour  of  the  African;  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  gives  me  strength 
and  comfort,  when  I  need  it,  and  will  give  you  strength  and  com 
fort  when  you  need  it,  and  which  gives  strength  and  comfort  to 
the  African,  enable  you  to  keep  this  resolution  which  you  have 
now  taken.'  And  that  man  was  John  Brown.", 

Most  important  after  that  of  the  Brown  family  is  the  tes 
timony  of  Frederick  Douglass,  the  colored  leader,  who  states 
in  his  autobiography  8  that  Brown  confided  the  Virginia  plan 
to  him,  without  specifying  Harper's  Ferry  or  speaking  of  the 
arsenal,  "about  the  time"  he  began  his  newspaper  enterprise 
in  Rochester  in  1847,  and  among  other  details  added  that 
Brown  explained  his  frugal  manner  of  living  by  his  wish  to 
lay  by  money  for  this  abolition  project.  Frederick  Douglass 


\/ 


48  JOHN  BROWN 

visited  Brown  in  his  home  in  Springfield  on  this  occasion. 
"  From  this  night  spent  with  John  Brown,"  said  Mr.  Douglass, 
"...  while  I  continued  to  write  and  speak  against  slavery, 
I  became  all  the  same  less  hopeful  of  its  peaceful  abolition. 
My  utterances  became  more  and  more  tinged  by  the  color 
of  this  man's  strong  impressions.  Speaking  at  an  anti-slavery 
convention  in  Salem,  Ohio,  I  expressed  the  apprehension  that 
slavery  could  only  be  destroyed  by  blood-shed,  when  I  was 
suddenly  and  sharply  interrupted  by  my  good  old  friend 
Sojourner  Truth  with  the  question,  'Frederick,  is  God  dead?' 
'No,'  I  answered,  'and  because  God  is  not  dead,  slavery  can 
only  end  in  blood." 

If  this  testimony  seems  to  show  that  the  plan  of  using  force 
was  then,  in  1847,  taking  shape  in  Brown's  mind,  —  it  may 
have  been  delayed  in  coming  to  earlier  maturity  by  his  bank 
ruptcy  and  financial  distress,  —  there  is  nothing  in  John 
Brown's  letters  or  diary  to  indicate  so  early  an  all-ruling 
plan  of  applying  force  to  slavery  as  John  Brown,  Jr.,  records. 
It  is  said  that  his  father  first  conceived  the  idea  of  using  the 
Allegheny  Mountains  as  the  scene  for  an  armed  attack  on 
slavery,  and  a  means  of  running  off  freed  slaves  to  the  North, 
when  he  surveyed  the  Oberlin  lands.9  But  his  letter  to  his 
family  from  Ripley,  Virginia,  April  27,  1840, 10  already  cited, 
is  peaceable  enough,  and  his  hope  of  settling  his  family  there 
is  hardly  consistent  with  his  anti-slavery  policy  of  later  years. 
Indeed,  while  recording  his  pleasure  that  the  residents  of  the 
vicinity  were  more  attractive  people  than  he  had  thought, 
he  had  nothing  to  say  about  the  institution  of  slavery  which 
he  then,  for  the  first  time,  really  beheld  at  close  range.  So 
far  as  the  evidence  of  contemporary  documents  goes,  until 
1840,  at  least,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  there  was  any 
thing  more  than  a  family  agreement  to  oppose  slavery,  with 
out  specification  as  to  the  precise  method  of  assault. 

The  transformation  of  the  peaceful  tanner  and  shepherd 
into  a  man  burning  to  use  arms  upon  an  institution  which 
refused  to  yield  to  peaceful  agitation  would  seem  to  have 
taken  place  in  the  latter  part  of  his  fourth  decade,  as  Mr. 
Douglass  testified.  Gradually  his  plan  took  final  shape.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  surroundings  of  pastoral  Richfield  or 
Akron  to  suggest  narrow  defiles  and  mountainous  passes 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       49 

teeming  with  sharpshooters.    But,  little  by  little,  visions  of 
this  kind  came  into  Brown's  brain  more  and  more  as  the  years 
passed,  until  in  the  early^ fifties  his  plan  was  clear  to  him  in 
its  outlines,  much  as  actually  put  into  execution.  The  salient 
idea  was  that  mountains  had  throughout  history  been  the 
means  of  enabling  a  few  brave  souls,  whether  gladiators,  or 
slaves,  or  free  men,  Swiss,  Italians,  or  Spaniards,  or  Circas 
sians,  to  defy  and  sometimes  to  defeat  armies  of  their  op 
pressors.    Into  the  mountain  fastnesses  regular  troops  pene 
trated,  it  was  thought,  with  difficulty,  and  the  ranges  them 
selves  afforded  an  easy  line  of  communication  even  through 
a  wholly  hostile  country.    Moreover,  mountains  were  just 
the  place  to  assemble  bondmen  and  to  give  them  arms  with 
which  to  fight  for  liberty.    For  the  project  was  now  far  dif 
ferent  from  that  John  Brown  described  to  his  brother  in  1834; 
slavery,  it  appeared,  was,  after  all,  not  to  be  undone  by  edu 
cating  the  negroes  already  freed,  but  by  the  sword  of  Gideon 
and  a  band  as  carefully  chosen  as  was  his.    Gradually  the 
practical  shepherd  felt  his  blood  stirring  within  him,  but  not 
until  after  removal  to  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  in  1846, 
when  he  had  the  opportunity  to  come  into  closer  knowledge 
of  the  militant  Boston  Abolitionists,  is  there  written  evi 
dence  of  this.    He  had  seen  the  Liberator  in  his  father's  home, 
for  Owen  Brown  early  became  a  subscriber  to  this  and  other 
vigorous  anti-slavery  journals.    John  Brown's  children  also 
remember  to  have  received  the  Liberator  in  Ohio,  when  it 
was  still  a  youthful  publication,11  and  later  in  North  Elba. 
The  Tribune,  too,  as  it  attained  fame  under  Greeley,  was  as 
welcome  a  visitor  to  this  home  as  to  so  many  thousands  of 
others.    Its  approval  of  the  doctrine  of  opposing  slavery  with 
Sharp's  rifles  commended  it  particularly  in  the  Kansas  days 
to  John  Brown,  who  was  by  nature  unable  to  sympathize 
with   the  Garrisonian  doctrine  of  non-resistance   to  force, 
although  there  are  some  who  would  believe  Brown  to  have 
been  a  non-resistant  as  late  as  1830.    They  cite  in  support 
of  their  contention  a  garbled  anecdote,  according  to  which 
he  permitted  himself  to  be  cowhided  without  resisting  his 
assailant's  fury.12    Brown's  residence  in  Springfield  gave  him 
the  opportunity  not  only  to  4   anti-slavery  meetings, 

but  also  to  meet  many  colon  !  j-  .  ole;  in  the  first  written 


50  JOHN  BROWN 

evidence  of  his  growing  aggressiveness  towards  slavery  there 
is  reference  to  enlightenment  at  the  hands  of  Abby  Kelley 
Foster,*  Garrison  "and  other  really  benevolent  persons." 
This  curious  production  of  Brown's  bespeaks  the  influence 
upon  him  of  Franklin's  writings;  throughout,  it  is  an  admo 
nition  to  the  negroes  to  avoid  their  besetting  sins,  an  incen 
tive  to  thrift,  frugality  and  solidarity,  and  it  is  written  as  if 
from  the  pen  of  a  black  man,  Sambo.  Contributed  in  1848 
or  1849  to  a  little-known  Abolition  newspaper,  The  Rani's 
Horn,  published  and  edited  by  colored  men  in  New  York, 
this  essay  denounces  the  negroes  for  their  supineness  in  the 
face  of  wrong,  instead  of  their  "nobly  resisting"  brutal  ag 
gressions,  f 

But  for  all  its  denunciation  of  the  negro's  "tamely  sub 
mitting  to  every  species  of  indignity,  contempt  and  wrong," 
it  cannot  be  maintained  that  this  satirical  article  indicated 
that  Brown  had  gone  very  far  along  the  path  toward  an  armed 
attack  on  slavery,  although  started  in  that  direction.  Nor 
does  it  appear  from  this  that  he  had  as  yet  reached  the 
conclusion  that  the  New  England  Abolitionists  were  to  be 
shunned  because  they  were  all  talk.  In  ,1851,  however,  the 
policy  of  armed  resistance  becomes  much  more  clearly  de 
veloped  ;  the  man  of  war  is  now  emerging  from  the  chrysalis 
of  peace.  On  January  15  of  that  year  there  was  organized  in 
Springfield  a  branch  of  the  United  States  League  of  Gilead- 
ites  —  the  first  and  apparently  the  only  one.  It  was  Brown's 
idea;  he  chose  the  title,  and  it  was  his  first  effort  to  organize 
the  colored  people  to  defend  themselves  and  advance  their 
interests.  It  was  a  practical  application  of  the  teachings  of 
Sambo,  and  was  inspired  by  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  which  made  legal  in  the  North  the  rendition  of 
negroes  who  had  found  their  way  to  free  States.  The  "Words 
of  Advice"  for  the  Gileadites,  "as  written  and  recommended 
by  John  Brown"  and  adopted  as  the  principles  of  the  new 
organization,  begin  with  the  motto  "Union  is  Strength," 

*  "John  Brown  was  strong  for  women's  rights  and  women's  suffrage.  He 
always  went  to  hear  Lucretia  Mott  and  Abby  Kelley  Foster,  even  though  it  cost 
him  considerable  effort  to  reach  the  place  where  they  spoke."  —  Annie  Brown 
Adams. 

t  See  Appendix. 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       51 

and  declare  in  the  first  sentence  that  "Nothing  so  charms 
the  American  people  as  personal  bravery."13  The  object  of 
the  Gileadites  was  not,  however,  to  attack  slavery  on  its 
own  territory,  but  to  band  the  colored  people  together  to  re 
sist  slave-catchers  and  make  impossible  the  returning  to  the 
South  of  a  fugitive  who  had  reached  Northern  soil.  Brown 
wrote: 

"No  jury  can  be  found  in  the  Northern  States,  that  would  con 
vict  a  man  for  defending  his  rights  to  the  last  extremity.  This  is 
well  understood  by  Southern  Congressmen,  who  insisted  that  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury  should  not  be  granted  to  the  fugitive.  Col 
ored  people  have  more  fast  friends  amongst  the  whites  than  they 
suppose.  .  .  .  Just  think  of  the  money  expended  by  individuals 
in  your  behalf  in  the  past  twenty  years!  Think  of  the  number 
who  have  been  mobbed  and  imprisoned  on  your  account.  Have 
any  of  you  seen  the  Branded  Hand?  Do  you  remember  the  names  of 
Lovejoy  and  Torrey?  Should  one  of  your  number  be  arrested,  you 
must  collect  together  as  quickly  as  possible  so  as  to  outnumber  your 
adversaries  who  are  taking  an  active  part  against  you.  Let  no 
able-bodied  man  appear  on  the  ground  unequipped,  or  with  his 
weapons  exposed  to  view;  let  that  be  understood  beforehand.  Your 
plans  must  be  known  only  to  yourself,  and  with  the  understanding 
that  all  traitors  must  die,  wherever  caught  and  proven  to  be  guilty. 
'Whosoever  is  fearful  or  afraid,  let  him  return  and  depart  early 
from  Mount  Gilead.'  (Judges,  VII  chap.,  3  verse;  Deut.  XX  Chap. 
8  verse.)  Give  all  cowards  an  opportunity  to  show  it  on  condi 
tion  of  holding  their  peace.  Do  not  delay  one  moment  after  you 
are  ready;  you  will  lose  all  your  resolution  if  you  do.  Let  the  first 
blow  be  the  signal  for  all  to  engage;  and  when  engaged  do  not  do 
your  work  by  halves;  but  make  clean  work  with  your  enemies, 
and  be  sure  you  meddle  not  with  any  others  .  .  .  Your  enemies 
will  be  slow  to  attack  you  after  you  have  once  done  up  the  work 
nicely.  .  .  ." 

/  All  this  has  the  characteristic  ring  of  John  Brown  the 
| Kansas  fighter,  particularly  the  admonition  to  make  "clean 
work  with  your  enemies."  Here  is  the  stern  Puritan  parent, 
intolerant  of  childish  fault,  developed  into  a  man  urging  not 
only  shedding  the  blood  of  one's  enemies,  but  the  making  of 
"clean  work"  of  It,  much  as  pirate  captains  advocated  the 
walking  of  the  plank  as^  a  sanitarily  satisfactory  way  of  dis 
posing  of  one's  captives.}  This  advice,  as  will  be  seen  later  in 
this  narrative,  recurs  frequently  in  the  days  when  the  Round 
head  was  in  the  field  at  work.  Certainly,  when  engaged, 


52  JOHN  BROWN 

he  always  lived  up  to  his  doctrine  of  going  at  once  to  close 
quarters  with  his  enemy,  after  the  manner  of  John  Paul  Jones. 
The  transformation  of  the  practical  shepherd  was  thus  coming 
on  apace. 

Characteristic,  too,  is  Brown's  suggestion  in  the  "  Words 
of  Advice,"  that  a  lasso  might  be  "applied  to  a  slave-catcher 
for  once  with  good  effect."  "Stand  by  one  another,  and  by 
your  friends,  while  a  drop  of  blood  remains;  and  be  hanged, 
if  you  must,  but  tell  no  tales  out  of  school,"  -  this  is  another 
solemn  admonition  which  smacks  of  the  Spanish  Main,  yet 
accurately  foreshadows  his  own  conduct  when  overcome  by 
his  enemies.  Original  is  the  hint  to  the  colored  people  to 
embroil  their  white  friends  in  the  event  of  trouble:  "After 
effecting  a  rescue,  if  you  are  assailed,  go  into  the  houses  of 
your  most  prominent  and  influential  white  friends  with  your 
wives,  and  that  will  effectually  fasten  upon  them  the  suspi 
cion  of  being  connected  with  you,  and  will  compel  them  to 
make  a  common  cause  with  you,  whether  they  would  other 
wise  live  up  to  their  profession  or  not.  This  would  leave  them 
no  choice  in  the  matter."  These  "Words  of  Advice"  were 
followed  by  an  agreement  and  nine  resolutions  which  practi 
cally  restate  the  agreement.  This  was  signed  by  forty-four 
colored  men  and  women  of  Springfield.  It  is  typical  of  other 
documents  John  Brown  drew  up  on,  to  him,  serious  occa 
sions,  and  is  in  his  best  style : 14 

AGREEMENT 

As  citizens  of  the  United  States  of  America,  trusting  in  a  just 
and  merciful  God,  whose  spirit  and  all-powerful  aid  we  humbly 
implore,  we  will  ever  be  true  to  the  flag  of  our  beloved  country, 
always  acting  under  it.  We,  whose  names  are  hereunto  affixed, 
do  constitute  ourselves  a  branch  of  the  United  States  League  of 
Gileadites.  We  will  provide  ourselves  at  once  with  suitable  imple 
ments,  and  will  aid  those  who  do  not  possess  the  means,  if  any 
such  are  disposed  to  join  us.  We  invite  every  colored  person  whose 
heart  is  engaged  for  the  performance  of  our  business,  whether  male 
or  female,  old  or  young.  The  duty  of  the  aged,  i*Arm,  and  young 
members  of  the  League  shall  be  to  give  instant  not>e  to  all  mem 
bers  in  case  of  an  attack  upon  any  of  our  people.  We  agree  to 
have  no  officers  except  a  Treasurer  and  Secretary  pro  tern.,  until 
after  some  trial  of  courage  and  talent  of  able-bodied  members  shall 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       53 

enable  us  to  elect  officers  from  those  who  shall  have  rendered  the 
most  important  services.  Nothing  but  wisdom  and  undaunted  cour 
age,  efficiency,  and  general  good  conduct  shall  in  anyway  influence 
us  in  electing  our  officers. 

It  is  not  of  record  that  any  members  of  the  Gileadites 
actually  took  a  hand  in  a  slave-rescue  "with  suitable  imple 
ments."  There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  no  doubt  that  the  de 
termined  Springfield  wool-merchant,  in  drafting  these  reso 
lutions  in  his  fifty-first  year,  meant  them  to  contain  advice 
which  may  briefly  be  summed  up  as  forcible  resistance  to  the 
officers  of  the  law,  and  an  admonition  to  shoot  to  kill  on  all 
such  occasions.  As  long  as  he  was  in  Springfield,  John  Brown 
continued  to  concern  himself  with  these  colored  friends.  On 
November  28,  183,0,  just  before  he  organized  the  Gileadites, 
he  wrote  to  his  wife: 15  "I  of  course  keep  encouraging  my 
colored  friends  to  '  trust  in  God  and  keep  their  powder  dry.' 
I  did  so  today,  at  Thanksgiving  meeting,  publicly." 

From  the  Gileadites  to  plans  for  guerrilla  warfare  was  an 
easy  step.  In  his  second  memorandum- book,  preserved  in  the 
Boston  Public  Library,  there  is  an  entry  which  was  probably 
recorded  early  in  1855.  It  reads  thus: 

"Circassia  has  about  550,000 

Switzerland  2,037,030 

Guerilla  warfare  see  Life  of  Lord  Wellington  Page  71  to  Page  75 
(Mina).  See  also  Page  102  some  valuable  hints  in  same  Book.  See 
also  Page  196  some  most  important  instructions  to  officers.  See 
also  same  Book  Page  235  these  words  Deep  and  narrow  defiles 
where  300  men  would  suffice  to  check  an  army.  See  also  Page  236 
on  top  of  Page." 

The  book  in  question  is  Joachim  Hayward  Stocqueler's 
two- volume  'Life  of  Field  Marshal  the  Duke  of  Wellington,' 
published  in  London  in  1852,  and  the  activity  of  the  Spanish 
guerrillas  under  their  able  leader  Mina  was  what  attracted 
Brown's  attention.  The  "most  important  instructions  to 
officers"  related  to  discipline  and  cooking,  and  page  235  fur 
nished  a  description  of  the  mountainous  and  broken  topogra 
phy  of  Spain.  Directly  opposite  the  entry  quoted  above  is  a 
list  of  Southern  towns,  with  four  Pennsylvania  cities  mixed  in, 
as  if  Brown  were  considering  such  strategic  points  as  Little 
Rock,  Arkansas;  Charleston,  South  Carolina;  San  Antonio, 


54  JOHN  BROWN 

Texas;  St.  Louis,  Missouri;  Augusta,  Georgia,  and  others,  in 
an  elaborate  plan  for  assailing  the  slave-power  and  running 
off  its  much  cherished  property.  Some  Ohio  friends  of  Brown, 
Colonel  Daniel  Woodruff,  an  officer  of  the  War  of  1812,  his 
son-in-law,  Mr.  Henry  Myers  and  his  daughter,  according  to 
the  recollections  of  the  two  latter  (Colonel  Woodruff  having 
died  soon  after),  learned  from  John  Brown  the  details  of  his 
Virginia  plan  as  early  as  the  late  fall  of  1854  or  the  beginning 
of  1855. 16  According  to  Mr.  Myers,  who  heard  the  discussion 
between  John  Brown  and  his  father-in-law,  the  former's  ob 
ject  in  visiting  Colonel  Woodruff  was  to  persuade  him  to  join 
in  a  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry,  to  take  place  at  that  time,  if 
it  could  be  organized.  He  had  seen  active  military  service, 
and  Brown  wanted  the  aid  of  his  practical  experience.  Dur 
ing  his  stay,  which  he  spent  in  urgent  endeavor  to  persuade 
Colonel  Woodruff,  Brown  detailed  his  whole  scheme,  so  that 
all  the  Woodruff  household  came  to  understand  it.  He  spoke 
of  the  evil  days  in  Kansas,  then  existing,  and  he  wished  to 
relieve  Kansas  and  to  retaliate  by  striking  at  another  point. 
He  wanted  to  attack  the  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry:  first,  to 
frighten  Virginia  and  detach  it  from  the  slave  interest;  second, 
to  capture  the  rifles  to  arm  the  slaves;  and  third,  to  destroy 
the  arsenal  machinery,  so  that  it  could  not  be  used  to  turn 
out  more  arms  for  the  perhaps  long  guerrilla  war  that  might 
follow;  and  to  destroy  whatever  guns  were  already  stored 
there  that  he  could  not  carry  away. 

That  this  revelation  of  his  plan  is  not  improbable  appears 
from  other  testimony.  In  August,  1854,  John  Brown  wrote 
to  his  sons,  who  were  then  planning  to  combat  slavery  by 
settling  in  Kansas  as  Free  State  men,  that  he  could  not  join 
them  because  he  felt  a  call  to  duty  in  another  section  of  the 
country. 17  Evidently,  the  practical  shepherd  now  clearly  real 
ized  what  was  his  greatest  object  in  life  and  was  devoting 
himself  to  it.  His  daughter,  Annie  Brown  Adams,  says  that 
she  first  learned  the  plan  of  the  raid  the  winter  she  was  eleven 
years  old  (in  1854) ;  and  then  she  heard  of  it  as  to  take  place 
at  Harper's  Ferry.18  Later,  in  hearing  other  people's  stories, 
she  found  other  places  mentioned.  Salmon  explained  this  to 
her  by  saying  that  their  father  several  times  changed  his 
plans,  and  that  he  had  spoken  of  them  to  various  other  people 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       55 

at  these  different  times.  "I  think  I  may  say/*  writes  Mrs. 
Adams,  "without  any  intention  of  boasting,  that  I  knew 
more  about  his  plans  than  anyone  else,  or  at  least  anyone 
else  who  'survived  to  tell  the  tale.'  He  always  talked  freely 
to  me  of  his  plans,  from  the  time  he  first  explained  them  to 
me,  the  winter  before  he  went  to  Kansas,  when  I  was  eleven 
years  old.  He  would  say  as  if  for  a  sort  of  apology  to  himself, 
perhaps,  'I  know  I  can  trust  you.  You  never  tell  anything 
you  are  told  not  to,'  after  talking  with  me  of  his  affairs." 

During  all  the  North  Elba  period  from  1849  to  1851,  so 
Miss  Sarah  Brown  thinks,  she  and  all  the  children  knew 
that  a  blow  was  to  be  struck  at  Harper's  Ferry.  She  clearly 
remembers  how,  when  Harper's  Ferry  came  into  the  lesson 
at  school,  her  heart  hammered  and  she  shivered  as  with  cold. 
Yet  she  cannot  recall  that  any  of  them  were  ever  cautioned 
to  keep  silence  as  to  this.  She  thinks  they  all  understood 
the  necessity  of  secrecy  as  to  all  their  father's  plans  so  well, 
that  warnings  were  known  to  be  superfluous.  She  clearly 
recalls  standing  behind  her  father's  chair  and  watching  him 
draw  diagrams  of  log  forts,  explaining  how  the  logs  were  to  be 
laid,  how  the  roofs  were  to  be  made,  and  how  trees  were  to 
be  felled  without,  and  laid  as  obstacles  to  attacking  parties. 
This  was  to  be  in  the  mountains  near  Harper's  Ferry,  and  her 
father  was  making  the  pictures  and  explaining  his  plans  to  one 
Epps,  a  negro  neighbor,  who  was  looking  on,  and  whom  her 
father  was  endeavoring  —  vainly  —  to  induce  to  join  the  raid 
ers.  Her  father  was  so  ready  to  trust  others  with  his  plans,  with 
sublime  faith  in  their  ability  to  keep  a  secret,  that  his  visit 
to  Colonel  Woodruff  would  have  been  entirely  in  keeping.  It 
is  related,  too,  that  he  confided  in  Thomas  Thomas,  a  negro 
porter  in  the  employ  of  Perkins  &  Brown  in  Springfield, 
soon  after  his  arrival  there  in  J846,19  but  there  is  no  direct 
confirmatory  evidence  of  his  having  laid  his  plan  before  some 
of  the  Gileadites.  Thomas  Thomas  took  no  active  interest  in 
Brown's  plans,  being  neither  conspicuous  in  the  League,  nor 
a  member  of  his  employer's  Chatham  convention  in  1858, 
preceding  the  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry. 

As  to  the  purposes  behind  the  plan  and  the  objects  to  be 
obtained,  it  is  probable  that  they  may  have  varied  as  the 
years  passed,  precisely  as  did  the  details  of  the  programme 


56  JOHN  BROWN 

and  the  actual  place  of  starting  his  revolt.  Thus,  while  he 
first  thought  of  Harper's  Ferry,  as  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams 
testifies, 20  other  places  were  at  times  discussed ;  even  up  to  the 
raid,  it  was  thought  by  some  of  the  Boston  backers  of  Brown 
that  the  place  of  striking  the  first  blow  would  be  some  other 
locality  than  Harper's  Ferry,21  which,  by  its  nearness  to  the 
capital  of  the  nation  and  its  being  on  a  railroad,  was  ren 
dered  much  less  desirable  for  the  purpose  in  hand  than  some 
place  nearer  the  Ohio  boundary.  So,  too,  the  prime  object 
was  at  one  time  the  terrorizing  of  the  slaveholders  and  the 
making  of  slaveholding  less  profitable,  by  reducing  the  value 
of  slaves  along  the  border.  Not  until  later  was  there  thought 
out  a  plan  for  capturing,  controlling  and  governing  a  whole 
section  of  the  United  States.  Again,  in  the  Kansas  years,  a 
prime  motive  was  to  relieve  the  pro-slavery  pressure  upon 
Kansas  by  attacking  slavery  elsewhere.  At  one  time,  as  his 
son  Salmon  points  out,  John  Brown  hoped  to  force  a  settle 
ment  of  the  slavery  question  by  embroiling  both  sections. 
This  was  in  line  with  his  whole  Kansas  policy  of  inducing  a 
settlement  by  bringing  armed  pro-slavery  and  Free  State  forces 
to  close  quarters,  and  letting  them  fight  it  out.  After  the 
Kansas  episode,  John  Brown  planned  agitation  for  the  pur 
pose  of  setting  the  South  afire./  The  Southern  leaders  in  Con 
gress  having  continually  threatened  secession,  John  Brown 
hoped  to  help  them  carry  out  their  threat  or  force  them  into 
it,  saying  that  the  "  North  would  then  whip  the  South  back 
into  the  Union  without  slavery."  Salmon  Brown  declares 
that  he  heard  his  father  and  John  Brown,  Jr.,  discuss  this  by 
the  hour,  and  insists  that  "the  Harper's  Ferry  raid  had  that 
idea  behind  it  far  more  than  any  other,"  the  biographers  of 
his  father  having  failed  heretofore  to  bring  out  this  central 
far-reaching  idea  to  the  extent  it  merits.22  But  the  main 
motive  was,  after  all,  to  come  to  close  quarters  with  slavery, 
and  to  try  force  where  argument  and  peaceful  agitation  had 
theretofore  failed  to  break  the  slaves'  chains.  And  so,  shortly 
before  he  reached  the  age  of  fifty,  this  unknown  and  incon 
spicuous  wool-merchant  and  cattle-raiser  had  fully  resolved 
to  be  the  David  to  the  Goliath  of  slavery.  He  entertained 
no  doubt  that  he  could  accomplish  that  end,  if  he  could  but 
command  the  funds  necessary  for  the  purchase  of  arms. 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       57 

r  While  all  this  metamorphosis  of  the  man  was  going  on, 
John  Brown's  new  business  venture  had  really  brought  him 
into  smoother  waters,  even  though  it  was  not  destined  to  be 
lasting  or  a  financial  success.  After  tending  the  Perkins  flocks 
for  two  years,  it  was  decided  to  establish  a  headquarters  in 
Massachusetts  for  the  sale  of  the  wool,  and  there  followed 
the  residence  in  Springfield  which  meant  so  much  for  Brown's 
development.  It  was  in  1846  that  he  opened  the  office,  and 
the  next  year  his  family  joined  him  there.  Frederick  Douglass, 
after  seeing  the  fine  store  of  Perkins  &  Brown,  was  prepared 
to  find  Brown's  residence  in  Springfield  similarly  impressive. 
"In  fact,"  he  wrote,23  "the  house  was  neither  commodious 
nor  elegant,  nor  its  situation  desirable.  It  was  a  small  wooden 
building,  on  a  back  street,  in  a  neighborhood  chiefly  occupied 
by  laboring  men  and  mechanics;  respectable  enough  to  be 
sure,  but  not  quite  the  place,  I  thought,  where  one  would  look 
for  the  residence  of  a  flourishing  and  successful  merchant. 
Plain  as  was  the  outside  of  this  man's  house,  the  inside  was 
plainer.  Its  furniture  would  have  satisfied  a  Spartan.  .  .  . 
There  was  an  air  of  plainness  about  it  [the  house]  which  almost 
suggested  destitution."  The  meal  was  "such  as  a  man  might 
relish  after  following  the  plow  all  day,  or  performing  a  forced 
march  of  a  dozen  miles  over  a  rough  road  in  frosty  weather." 
Everything  in  the  home  implied  to  Mr.  Douglass  "stern 
truth,  solid  purpose,  and  rigid  economy."  "I  was  not  long, 
he  added,  "in  company  with  the  master  of  this  house  before 
I  discovered  that  he  was,  indeed,  the  master  of  it,  and  was 
likely  to  become  mine  too  if  I  stayed  long  enough  with  him. 
He  fulfilled  St.  Paul's  idea  of  the  head  of  the  family.  His  wife 
believed  in  him,  and  his  children  observed  him  with  reverence. 
Whenever  he  spoke  his  words  commanded  earnest  attention. 
.  .  .  Certainly  I  never  felt  myself  in  the  presence  of  a  stronger 
religious  influence  than  while  in  this  man's  house." 

As  for  John  Brown  the  man,  he  was  then  in  his  forty-eighth 
year,  without  the  stoop  that  a  few  years  later  made  him  seem 
prematurely  old.  His  attire,  however  simple,  was  always  neat 
and  of  good  materials;  in  Ohio,  the  testimony  is,  he  dressed 
like  a  substantial  farmer  in  the  woolen  suits  of  the  time  and 
wore  cowhide  boots.  Physically  strong  and  sinewy,  he  was 
not  five  feet  eleven  in  height,  with  a  disproportionately  small 


58  JOHN  BROWN 

head,  an  inflexible  and  stern  mouth  and  a  prominent  chin. 
His  hair,  already  tinged  with  gray,  was  closely  trimmed  and 
grew  well  over  his  forehead.  But  his  bluish  gray  eyes  were 
what  held  and  won  people;  they  fairly  shone  when  he  talked. 
Mr.  Douglass  remembers  that  they  were  "full  of  light  and 
fire."24,  His  nose  was  somewhat  prominent  and  of  what  is 
known  as  the  Roman  type.  With  all,  the  face  was  vigorous, 
shrewd  and  impressive.  Once  a  visitor  to  the  North  Elba 
homestead  remarked  to  a  family  group:  "I  think  your  father 
looks  like  an  eagle."  "  Yes,"  replied  Watson  Brown,  "or  some 
other  carnivorous  bird."  25  But  the  comparison  was  not  meant 
to  be  unflattering;  it  was  the  keenness  of  the  eagle's  looks, 
the  sharp  watchfulness  of  his  glance,  even  with  half-shut  eyes, 
that  suggested  the  comparison.  On  the  prairies,  those  who 
rode  with  John  Brown  were  struck  with  the  range  and  the 
alertness  of  his  vision,  from  which  nothing  escaped,  while 
those  who  saw  him  in  the  cities  noticed  the  long  springing 
step  and  apparent  deep  absorption  in  his  own  reflections. 
Yet  all  agreed  upon  the  impressiveness  of  John  Brown's  bear 
ing;  even  in  later  years,  when  his  appearance  was  so  rural  as 
to  attract  attention  on  the  streets  of  Boston,  the  earnestness 
of  his  face  and  the  vigor  of  his  form  prevented  any  disposition 
to  ridicule. 

The  object  of  the  establishment  of  Perkins  &  Brown's 
office  in  Springfield  was  to  classify  wools  for  wool-growers,  in 
order  that  they  might  thus  obtain  a  better  value  for  their 
product  than  had  been  the  case  up  to  that  time,  and  to 
sell  it  on  a  commission  of  two  cents  per  pound.26  Having 
warehouses,  Perkins  &  Brown  received  large  shipments  of 
wool  from  farmers  known  to  them,  and  then  by  carefully 
sorting  the  fleeces  were  able  to  approach  manufacturers  of 
cashmere,  broadcloth,  jeans  or  satinette,  with  the  wools  of  the 
grade  they  desired.  In  the  first  Springfield  letter-book  of 
the  firm,  into  which  were  laboriously  copied  in  long-hand  all 
its  letters,27  the  first  epistle  bears  the  date  of  June  23,  1846, 
and  is  a  tribute  to  John  Brown's  probity  in  that  it  notifies 
Mr.  Marvin  Kent  that,  if  he  should  send  wool  to  the  firm  to 
sell,  the  amount  of  the  commissions  earned  would  be  used  to 
liquidate  John  Brown's  old  debts  to  himself  and  his  father. 
The  times  were  not,  however,  propitious  for  the  new  enter- 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       59 

prise.  The  Walker  tariff  was  just  being  passed  by  Congress,  and 
the  war  with  Mexico  was  on.  The  legislative  uncertainty  made 
the  wool  market  dull  and  unstable,  and  when  the  Walker  bill 
was  signed,  the  price  of  Saxony  wool,  in  which  Perkins  & 
Brown  were  especially  interested,  dropped  from  seventy- five  to 
twenty-five  cents.  Perkins  &  Brown  were,  however,  able  to 
start  off  by  selling  the  splendid  wool  of  their  own  flocks  for  the 
good  price  of  sixty-nine  cents,  and  early  in  July,  in  a  letter  in 
Brown's  handwriting,  they  asserted  that  "we  receive  at  this 
place  more  of  the  first  class  of  American  wools  than  any  other 
house  in  the  country."  28  Many  of  the  firm's  letters  are  in 
the  handwriting  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  who,  having  finished 
an  excellent  schooling  and  being  ready  for  business  life,  be 
came  a  clerk  in  the  Springfield  office,  in  which  Jason  Brown 
also  served.  By  August  26,  John  Brown  was  able  to  report, 
cheerfully,  to  the  senior  partner  in  Ohio,  as  follows:29  "We 
are  getting  in  wool  rapidly,  generally  from  50  to  80  bales  per 
day.  We  are  selling  a  little  and  have  very  frequent  calls  from 
manufacturers.  Musgrave  paid  up  our  note  at  the  Agawam 
[bank]  yesterday  so  that  I  now  have  our  name  clear  of  any 
paper  in  this  country.  .  .  .  We  have  had  a  big  wool-growers 
meeting  at  Springfield;  Bishop  Campbell  presiding,  in  refer 
ence  to  sending  wool  hereafter  to  Europe." 

This  project  of  exporting  wool  to  England  and  the  Conti 
nent  deeply  interested  Brown  from  the  beginning  of  his 
Springfield  residence,  particularly  as  he  found  himself,  in  the 
fall  of  1846,  loaded  up  with  other  people's  wool,  unable  to  sell 
it  for  them  at  fair  figures,  and  quite  unwilling  to  sacrifice  it 
at  forced  sales.  On  November  27,  1846,  he  wrote  to  a  client30 
that  he  would  have  gone  across  the  Atlantic  with  a  quan 
tity  of  wool  save  for  unforeseen  hindrances.  He  had  sent  to 
England  in  1845,  from  Ohio,  some  fleeces  "which  received 
unqualified  praise  both  for  condition  and  quality,"  and,  as  he 
said  in  this  letter,  the  firm  was  bent  on  encouraging  exporta 
tion  "and  in  giving  character  to  American  wools  in  Europe." 
Indeed,  the  sale  of  their  higher  grades  of  wool  to  an  English 
man  for  export  on  December  21,  1846,  was  all  that  saved 
Perkins  &  Brown  from  a  disastrous  ending  to  their  first 
season's  business.  They  were  being  hard  pushed  by  those  who 
had  sent  the  wool  and  were  in  need  of  money,  and  who  could 


'6o  JOHN  BROWN 

not  understand  why  the  firm  had  not  been  able  to  sell  a  single 
pound  of  fine  wool  from  July  to  December.  Moreover,  some 
customers  had  just  grievances,  for  the  letter-book  contains  far 
too  many  apologies  for  failure  to  acknowledge  letters  and 
shipments  and  to  make  out  accurate  accounts,  for  so  young 
a  firm.  To  one  of  the  protestants,  John  Brown  explained  the 
situation  thus: 31 

"  We  have  at  last  found  out  that  some  of  the  principal  manu 
facturers  are  leagued  together  to  break  us  down,  as  we  have  offered 
them  wool  at  their  own  price  &  they  refuse  to  buy.  .  .  .  We  hope 
every  wool-grower  in  the  country  will  be  at  Steubenville  [Ohio] 
2d  Wednesday  of  Feb'y  next,  to  hear  statements  about  the  wool 
trade  of  a  most  interesting  character.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  the 
matter  as  we  shall  be  abundantly  able  to  show,  if  the  farmers  will 
only  be  true  to  themselves.  .  .  .  Matters  of  more  importance  to 
farmers  will  then  be  laid  open,  than  what  kind  of  Tarriff  we  are  to 
have.  No  sacrifise  kneed  be  made,  the  only  thing  wanted  is  to  get 
the  broad  shouldered,  &  hard  handed  farmers  to  understand  how 
they  have  been  imposed  upon,  &  the  whole  matter  will  be  cured 
effectually." 

At  this  convention  Brown  made  his  peace  with  the  Ohio 
wool-growers  who  had  shipped  to  him,  but  he  did  not  find  a 
means  of  checkmating  the  cloth  manufacturers.  He  read  to 
the  convention  a  report  on  the  best  mode  of  making  wools 
ready  for  market  and  kindred  subjects.  It  was  resolved  that 
better  care  should  be  taken  in  preparing  and  washing  the 
wools,  that  commission-house  depots  be  appointed,  East  and 
West,  for  the  sale  of  wools,  Perkins  &  Brown  to  be  the  East 
ern  house,  and  a  committee  of  five,  of  which  John  Brown  was 
one,  was  appointed  to  obtain  a  foreign  market  for  American 
wools.32  The  wicked  manufacturers  continued,  however,  to 
make  trouble  for  the  wool-growers  and  the  commission  house 
of  Perkins  &  Brown,  whose  eventual  retirement  from  the 
wool  business  is  still  laid  at  their  doors.  They  did  not  wish 
the  wool-growers  to  organize  and  unite;  but  in  all  fairness  to 
the  manufacturers,  the  final  failure  should  as  well  be  shared 
by  Perkins  &  Brown  themselves.33  For,  though  the  Spring 
field  business  continued  in  1848  and  1849,  as  time  passed  it 
was  evident  that  John  Brown,  wholly  lacking  as  he  was  in  a 
merchant's  training,  was  not  fitted  for  the  work.  He  did  not  • 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       61 

know  how  to  trade,  being  far  too  rigid  in  his  prices.  He  waited 
to  make  them  until  he  had  all  his  wool  sorted;  then,  when 
the  prices  were  finally  fixed,  the  manufacturers  had  bought 
elsewhere.  It  is  related 34  that  John  Brown  once  declined 
sixty  cents  a  pound  for  the  firm's  own  splendid  Saxony  fleeces 
and  insisted  on  shipping  them  to  England  for  sale.  The  North 
ampton,  Massachusetts,  manufacturer  who  made  the  offer 
bought  this  shipment  in  England,  had  it  returned  to  Spring 
field,  and  showed  it  in  triumph  to  John  Brown  as  having  cost 
him  in  freight  and  all  only  fifty- two  cents  a  pound,  eight  cents 
less  than  he  had  first  offered  for  it.  Brown  had  apparently 
put  no  restriction  of  price  upon  his  London  agent. 

The  idea  of  checkmating  the  manufacturers  by  sales  abroad 
continued  to  engross  Brown,  and  he  was  finally  able  to  carry 
out  his  idea  of  a  trip  to  Europe  in  1849.  He  sailed  August  15, 
1849,  by  the  steamer  Cambria,  arriving  in  London  on  the  27th, 
on  a  journey  which  afterwards  played  a  great  part  in  his  dis 
cussions  of  his  military  plans,  for,  aside  from  his  business  ven 
ture,  he  was  by  this  time  particularly  anxious  to  study  some 
European  fortifications.  Finding  on  his  arrival  in  London  that 
no  sales  could  be  effected  until  the  middle  of  September,  he 
left  for  Paris  on  the  29th  of  August.  Some  of  his  first  impres 
sions  of  England  are  thus  set  down  in  a  letter  to  his  son : 35 

"England  is  a  fine  country,  so  far  as  I  have  seen;  but  nothing 
so  very  wonderful  has  yet  appeared  to  me.  Their  farming  and 
stone-masonry  are  very  good;  cattle,  generally  more  than  middling 
good.  Horses,  as  seen  at  Liverpool  and  London,  and  through  the 
fine  country  betwixt  these  places,  will  bear  no  comparison  with 
those  of  our  Northern  states,  as  they  average.  I  am  here  told  that 
I  must  go  to  the  Park  to  see  the  fine  horses  of  England,  and  I  sup 
pose  I  must ;  for  the  streets  of  London  and  Liverpool  do  not  ex 
hibit  half  the  display  of  fine  horses  as  do  those  of  our  cities.  But 
what  I  judge  from  more  than  anything  is  the  numerous  breeding 
mares  and  colts  among  the  growers.  Their  hogs  are  generally  good, 
and  mutton-sheep  are  almost  everywhere  as  fat  as  pork." 

Of  the  people  and  their  institutions  John  Brown  recorded 
no  impressions  in  the  letters  of  this  period  now  extant.  Nor 
is  his  entire  Continental  itinerary  known.  According  to  care 
fully  saved  hotel  bills,36  he  was  in  Calais  on  August  29  and  30, 
and  in  Hamburg  on  September  5.  Between  these  two  dates 


62  JOHN  BROWN 

he  was  in  Paris,  going  thence  to  Brussels,  where  he  visited 
the  battlefield  of  Waterloo  on  his  way  eastward.  Various 
surmises  have  been  made  as  to  where  the  other  eleven  or 
twelve  days  between  his  visit  to  Hamburg  and  his  return  to 
London  were  spent,  but  there  is  no  documentary  evidence 
to  prove  the  number  of  battlefields  he  visited,  or  that  he 
actually  penetrated  in  so  brief  a  time  into  Switzerland  and 
Northern  Italy,  as  is  sometimes  alleged.  As  already  stated, 
this  short  trip  to  the  Continent  played  a  great  part  in  his  later 
conversations,  when  he  was  called  upon  to  defend  the  peculiar 
features,  from  the  military  point  of  view,  of  his  Harper's  Ferry 
plans.  But  obviously,  no  thorough  military  studies  were  pos 
sible  in  so  scant  a  time  as  John  Brown  had  in  Europe. 

He  was  in  London  again  not  later  than  September  17,  when 
an  auction  sale  of  some  of  his  wool  took  place  that  set  the  seal 
of  disaster  upon  his  business  venture.  The  story  was  thus 
related  to  his  son  by  the  traveller:37 

LONDON  [Friday]  2ist  Sept  1849 
DEAR  SON  JOHN 

I  have  nothing  new  to  write  excepting  that  I  [am]  still  well  & 
that  on  Monday  last  a  lot  of  No.  2  wool  was  sold  at  the  auction  sale 
at  |  i  to  |  2j  or  in  other  words  at  from  .26  to  .29  cents  pr  Ib.  This 
is  a  bad  sale,  &  I  have  withdrawn  all  other  wools  from  the  public 
sales.  Since  the  other  wools  have  been  withdrawn  I  have  discov 
ered  a  much  greater  interest  amongst  the  buyers,  &  I  am  in  hopes 
to  succeed  better  with  the  other  wools  but  cannot  say  yet  how  it 
will  prove  on  the  whole.  I  have  a  great  deal  of  stupid,  obstinate, 
prejudice,  to  contend  with  as  well  as  conflicting  interests;  both  in 
this  country,  &  from  the  United  States.  I  can  only  say  that  I  have 
exerted  myself  to  the  utmost;  &  that  if  I  cannot  effect  a  better  sale 
of  the  other  wools  privately;  I  shall  start  them  back.  I  believe  that 
not  a  pound  of  the  No  2  wool  was  bought  for  the  United  States, 
&  I  learn  that  the  general  feeling  is  now;  that  it  was  quite  under 
sold.  About  150  Bales  were  sold.  I  regret  that  so  many  were  put 
up;  but  it  cannot  be  helped  now,  for  after  wool  has  been  subjected 
to  a  London  examination  for  a  public  sale  it  is  very  much  injured 
for  selling  again.  The  agent  of  Thirion  Maillard  &  Co  has  been 
looking  at  them  today,  &  seemed  highly  pleased,  said  he  had  never 
seen  superior  wools;  &  that  he  would  see  me  again.  We  have  not 
yet  talked  about  price.  I  now  think  I  shall  begin  to  think  of  home 
quite  in  earnest  at  least  in  another  fortnight  possibly  sooner.  I  do 
not  think  the  sale  made  a  full  test  of  the  opperation. 

Farewell  Your  Affectionate  Father 

JOHN  BROWN  . 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       63 

On  October  5,  Brown  had  again  returned  to  London,  after 
visiting  "Leeds,  Wortley,  Branley,  Bradford  &  other  places," 
and  wrote  thus  to  his  son  John,  Jr. : 38  "  I  expect  to  close  up  the 
sale  of  wool  here  today,  &  to  be  on  my  way  home  One  week 
from  today.  .  .  .  It  is  impossible  to  sell  the  wool  for  near  its 
value  compared  with  other  wools,  but  I  expect  to  do  better 
some  than  in  the  first  sale.  I  have  at  any  rate  done  my  utmost, 
&  can  do  no  more.  I  do  not  expect  to  write  again  before  I 
leave.  .  .  .  My  health  is  good  but  I  have  been  in  the  midst 
of  sickness  and  death."  During  this  interval,  too,  John  Brown 
visited  in  London  the  first  of  the  long  series  of  world's  fairs, 
and  took  advantage  of  it  to  exhibit  some  of  the  beautiful 
Saxony  wool  he  had  brought  with  him.  Long  after  his  return 
to  his  home,  he  received  a  bronze  medal  which  the  wool  judges 
awarded  him  for  his  exhibit.  Here,  too,  must  be  recorded  the 
story  early  recorded  by  Redpath,  of  the  attempt  of  some 
English  wool-merchants  to  play  a  trick  on  the  rustic  Yankee 
farmer  who  came  to  them  with  wool  to  sell,  by  handing  him 
a  sample  and  asking  him  what  he  would  do  with  it:  "His  eyes 
and  fingers  were  so  good  that  he  had  only  to  touch  it  to  know 
that  it  had  not  the  minute  hooks  by  which  fibres  of  wool  are 
attached  to  each  other.  *  Gentlemen,'  said  he,  'if  you  have 
any  machinery  that  will  work  up  dogs'  hair,  I  would  advise 
you  to  put  this  into  it.'  The  jocose  Briton  had  sheared  a 
poodle  and  brought  the  hair  in  his  pocket,  but  the  laugh 
went  against  him ;  and  Captain  Brown,  in  spite  of  some  pecul 
iarities  of  dress  and  manner,  soon  won  the  respect  of  all  he 
met."  It  is  also  said  that  if  given  samples  of  Ohio  and  Ver 
mont  wool,  he  could  readily  distinguish  them  when  blind 
folded  or  in  the  dark. 

Apparently  he  was  able  to  despatch  his  business  about  as 
he  had  hoped  to,  for  he  was  in  New  York  by  the  end  of  Octo 
ber,  bringing  back  the  wool  that  he  was  unable  to  sell.  The 
loss  on  this  venture  was  probably  as  high  as  forty  thousand 
dollars.39  Not  unnaturally  this  added  neither  to  the  standing 
nor  the  progress  of  the  firm,  and  the  skies  were  much  dark 
ened  for  the  partners.  Even  before  the  trip  to  Europe,  they 
had  talked  of  giving  up  the  business.  Nearly  a  year  later, 
John  Brown  thus  described  an  interview  with  his  financial 
backer  and  partner:40 


64  JOHN  BROWN 

BURGETTSTOWN  PA  I2th  April  1850     } 

DEAR  SON  JOHN,  &  WIFE 

When  at  New  York  on  my  way  here  I  called  at  Mess  Fowlers 
&  Wells  office,  but  you  were  absent.  Mr.  Perkins  has  made  me  a 
visit  here,  &  left  for  home  yesterday.  All  well  in  Essex  when  I  left. 
All  well  at  Akron  when  he  left  one  week  since.  Our  meeting  to 
gether  was  one  of  the  most  cordial,  &  pleasant,  I  ever  experienced. 
He  met  a  full  history  of  our  difficulties,  &  probable  losses  without 
a  frown  on  his  countenance,  or  one  sylable  of  reflection,  but  on  the 
contrary  with  words  of  comfort,  &  encouragement.  He  is  wholly 
averse  to  any  seperation  of  our  business  or  interests,  &  gave  me 
the  fullest  assurance  of  his  undiminished  confidence,  &  personal 
regard.  He  expressed  a  strong  desire  to  have  our  flock  of  sheep 
remain  undivided  to  become  the  joint  possession  of  our  families 
when  we  have  gone  off  the  stage.  Such  a  meeting  I  had  not  dared 
to  expect,  &  I  most  heartily  wish  each  of  my  family  could  have 
shared  in  the  comfort  of  it.  Mr.  Perkins  has  in  this  whole  business 
from  first  to  last  set  an  example  worthy  of  a  Philosopher,  or  of  a 
Christian.  I  am  meeting  with  a  good  deal  of  trouble  from  those 
to  whom  we  have  over  advanced  but  feel  nerved  to  face  any  diffi 
culty  while  God  continues  me  such  a  partner.  Expect  to  be  in  New 
York  within  3  or  4  weeks.* 

By  November  the  firm's  situation  was  much  worse.  "We 
have  trouble,"  wrote  John  Brown  to  his  son  on  the  4th  of 
that  month,41  "with  Pickersgills,  McDonald,  Jones,  Warren, 
Burlington  &  Patterson  &  Ewing.  These  different  claims 
amount  to  $40  M ;  [$40,000]  &  if  lost  will  leave  me  nice  &  flat. 
(This  is  in  confidence.)  Mr.  Perkins  bears  the  trouble  a  great 
deal  better  than  I  had  feared.  I  have  been  trying  to  collect 
&  am  still  trying."  Just  a  month  later,  he  informed  his  sons 
that  the  prospect  for  the  fine-wool  business  was  improving. 
"What  burdens  me  most  of  all  is  the  apprehension  that  Mr. 
Perkins  expects  of  me  in  the  way  of  bringing  matters  to  a 
close  what  no  living  man  can  possibly  bring  about  in  a  short 
time,  and  that  he  is  getting  out  of  patience  and  becoming 
distrustful.  .  .  .  He  is  a  most  noble-spirited  man,  to  whom 
I  feel  most  deeply  indebted ;  and  no  amount  of  money  would 
atone  to  my  feelings  for  the  loss  of  confidence  and  cordiality 
on  his  part."  That  this  loss  did  not  come  to  pass  is  attested 
by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Perkins's  son,  George  T.  Perkins,  who 
writes :f  "My  father,  Simon  Perkins,  was  associated  with  Mr. 

*  Signature  missing. 

t  To  the  author,  from  Akron,  Ohio,  December  26,  1908. 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       65 

Brown  in  business  for  a  number  of  years,  and  always  regarded 
him  as  thoroughly  honest  and  honorable  in  all  his  relations 
with  him.  Mr.  Brown  was,  however,  so  thoroughly  imprac 
tical  in  his  business  management,  as  he  was  in  almost  every 
thing  else,  that  the  business  was  not  a  success  and  was  dis 
continued.  Their  relations  were  afterwards  friendly.'*  On 
the  other  side,  the  Browns  felt  that  too  much  responsibility 
had  been  put  upon  their  father.  While  most  successful  as  a 
railroad  man,  Mr.  Perkins  was  not  as  well  fitted  by  experience 
and  aptitude  for  the  wool  business.  But  despite  John  Brown's 
failures,  he  gave  him  one  chance  after  another.  "John  Brown 
was,  however,  entirely  obstinate,  insisted  always  on  having 
his  own  way,  and  at  last  Mr.  Perkins  broke  the  connection."  42 
The  senior  partner  did  not,  moreover,  share  the  junior's  antip 
athy  to  slavery. 

The  final  winding  up  of  the  firm's  affairs  lasted  for  some 
years,  because  of  prolonged  litigation  growing  out  of  the 
trouble  with  some  of  the  houses  and  customers  John  Brown 
mentioned.  Against  one  of  them,  Warren,  his  indignation 
was  never  checked.  As  late  as  April  16,  1858,  he  warned  his 
family,  when  purchasing  land  from  his  daughter  and  son-in- 
law,  against  the  possibility  of  trouble  from  creditors  of  Per 
kins  &  Brown: 43 

"  Since  I  wrote  you,  I  have  thought  it  possible;  though  not  prob 
able;  that  some  persons  might  be  disposed  to  hunt  for  any  property 
I  may  be  supposed  to  possess,  on  account  of  liabilities  I  incurred 
while  concerned  with  Mr.  Perkins.  Such  claims  I  ought  not  to  pay 
if  I  had  ever  so  much  given  me;  for  my  service  in  Kansas.  Most  of 
you  know  that  I  gave  up  all  I  then  had  to  Mr.  Perkins  while  with 
him.  ...  I  also  think  that  .  .  .  all  the  family  had  better  decline 
saying  anything  about  their  land  matters.  Should  any  disturbance 
ever  be  made  it  will  most  likely  come  directly  or  indirectly  through 
a  scoundrel  by  the  name  of  Warren  who  defrauded  Mr.  Perkins 
and  I  out  of  several  thousand  dollars." 

The  trial  of  the  Perkins  &  Brown  suit  against  Warren  took 
place  in  Troy,  New  York,  late  in  January,  1852;  from  a  re 
port  of  John  Brown  to  Mr.  Perkins  on  the  26th  of  January,44 
it  looked  as  if  the  suit  were  going  in  the  firm's  favor.  He  did 
obtain  a  verdict  in  this  lower  court,  only  to  have  it  appealed 
to  a  higher  court,  with  the  result,  according  to  John  Brown, 


66  JOHN  BROWN 

that  Warren  was  successful  in  his  attempt  to  defraud  the 
firm.  A  more  serious  suit  was  one  brought  against  Perkins 
&  Brown  for  no  less  than  sixty  thousand  dollars  damages, 
for  breach  of  contract  in  supplying  wool  of  certain  grades 
to  the  Burlington  Mills  Company  of  Burlington,  Vermont.  It 
finally  came  to  trial  January  14,  1853,  and  after  progressing 
somewhat  it  was  settled  out  of  court,  his  counsel  deeming 
it  wiser  to  compromise  than  to  face  a  jury.45  There  were  still 
other  suits  brought  by  or  against  the  firm  to  vex  John  Brown 
during  these  years  1850  to  1854,  and  to  add  by  their  costli 
ness  and  tedious  delays  to  the  financial  losses.  This  was  the 
unfortunate  wind-up  to  John  Brown's  career  as  a  wool-mer 
chant.  Thereafter  he  lived  first  on  the  products  of  his  farm 
ing  in  Ohio  or  in  the  Adirondacks,  and  then  on  gifts  made  to 
maintain  him  as  a  guerrilla  leader  in  Kansas,  or  as  a  prospective 
invader  of  Virginia.  From  August,  1856,  when  he  first  re 
turned  from  Kansas,  until  October,  1859,  he  was  thus  main 
tained,  without  a  regular  business  or  regular  labor  of  any 
kind,  while  part  of  his  family  obtained  a  penurious  living 
in  the  Adirondacks,  and  the  grown  sons  shared  their  father's 
poverty  and  hardships  in  Kansas  or  worked  and  farmed  at 
intervals  in  Ohio,  until  the  final  disaster  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
Although  unable  to  impress  others  with  his  fitness  as  a  busi 
ness  man,  when  he  finally  abandoned  the  career  of  a  mer 
chant  for  that  of  a  warrior  against  slavery,  he  had  so  little 
difficulty  in  convincing  friends  and  acquaintances  of  his  abil 
ity,  usefulness  and  sagacity  as  a  guerrilla  chief  and  leader  of 
a  slave  revolt,  that  he  readily  obtained  thousands  of  dollars  to 
maintain  him  and  his  followers  during  at  least  three  years  of 
their  warring  upon  the  South's  cherished  ownership  of  human 
property. 

It  is  only  just  to  add  that,  while  the  financial  losses  of 
Perkins  &  Brown's  mercantile  business  were  heavy,  Mr.  Per 
kins  was  not  only  willing  to  continue  in  the  farming  and 
sheep-raising  part  of  it  with  Brown,  but  insisted  on  it  until 
well  into  the  spring  of  1854.  The  last  year  of  this  phase  of 
their  joint  enterprise  was  "quite  successful."  "We  have 
great  reason  to  be  thankful,"  wrote  John  Brown  in  February, 
"  that  we  have  had  so  prosperous  a  year,  and  have  terminated 
our  connection  with  Mr.  Perkins  so  comfortably  and  on  such 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       67 

friendly  terms."46  Early  in  April,  1854,  he  again  wrote:  "I 
had  a  most  comfortable  time  settling  last  year's  business  and 
dividing  with  Mr.  Perkins  and  have  to  say  of  his  dealings 
with  me  that  he  has  shown  himself  to  be  every  inch  a  gen 
tleman."  47  The  only  drawback,  in  John  Brown's  mind,  was 
his  inability  to  move  his  family  back  to  North  Elba.  This  he 
had  to  put  off  for  another  year,  during  which  he  rented  and 
worked  three  farms  near  Akron,  meanwhile  turning  every 
thing  into  cash  that  he  could  in  preparation  for  the  final 
settlement  in  his  new  home  in  the  Adirondacks. 

For  John  Brown  was  content  to  stay  neither  in  Akron  nor 
anywhere  else  in  Ohio.  The  residence  of  his  family  in  Spring 
field  had  lasted,  all  told,  but  two  years,  from  1847  to  1849; 
then  the  restlessness  of  his  nature  dictated  another  move. 
While  in  Springfield  he  occupied  the  house  at  number  31 
Franklin  Street,  where  Frederick  Douglass  found  him,  and  in 
which  his  daughter  Ellen  was  born  on  May  20,  1848,  only  to 
die  a  year  later  in  her  sorely  tried  father's  arms.  Still  another 
child,  an  infant  son,  he  was  yet  to  lose,  —  the  seventh  of  the 
thirteen  children  of  his  second  marriage  to  die  in  childhood, 
while  two  more  were  destined  to  perish  at  Harper's  Ferry 
before  his  eyes.  It  is  still  remembered  that  the  parlor  of  this 
Springfield  house  was  not  furnished,  that  the  money  it  would 
cost  might  be  given  to  fugitive  slaves.48  Indeed,  Springfield 
still  abounds  in  anecdotes  of  the  wool-dealer  in  whom,  at  the 
time  of  his  residence  there,  no  one  saw  any  signs  of  greatness. 
The  best  known  one  concerns  his  attempt  to  prove  that  the 
hypnotism  practised  by  La  Roy  Sunderland,  a  well-known 
hypnotist  of  this  period,  1848  or  1849,  was  a  fraud.  So  many 
garbled  versions  of  this  story  have  appeared  from  time  to 
time  that  it  is  best  to  give  it  in  Mr.  Sunderland's  own  words, 
as  he  described  it  on  December  9,  i859:49 

"His  conduct  in  one  of  my  lectures  on  Pathetism,  in  Springfield, 
Mass.,  some  twelve  years  since,  has  been  referred  to  in  the  papers, 
lately.  That  occasion  offered  a  grand  opportunity  for  the  exhibi 
tion  of  his  real  character,  as,  at  that  time,  he  had  not  engaged  in 
the  defence  of  Kansas,  and  he  had  had  no  personal  encounters 
with  Slavery.  He  had  witnessed  the  surgical  operation  performed 
on  a  lady  whom  I  had  rendered  insensible  to  pain,  as  she  alleged, 
by  Pathetism.  This,  with  the  other  phenomena  which  he  witnessed 
in  my  lectures,  was  beyond  his  comprehension ;  and  so  he  arose  one 


68  JOHN  BROWN 

evening,  and  pronounced  my  lectures  a  humbug,  and  he  offered  to 
prove  it,  if  I  would  only  allow  him  to  come  upon  my  platform, 
and  test  the  consciousness  of  one  of  my  patients.  To  this  proposal 
I  consented,  on  two  conditions,  namely,  that  his  tests  should  not 
endanger  the  health  of  my  patient;  and  this  to  be  determined  by 
the  physicians  of  the  town;  and  secondly,  that  Brown  himself 
should  submit  to  the  same  processes  which  he  should  inflict  upon 
the  entranced  lady.  To  this  he  readily  agreed,  although  it  was 
quite  evident  that  when  he  at  first  proposed  his  test  he  had  no  idea 
of  going  through  with  it  himself.  He  had  consulted  a  physician  for  a 
process  which  should,  beyond  all  doubt,  demonstrate  the  conscious 
ness  of  pain,  if  any  such  consciousness  existed  in  the  lady  who  was 
entranced.  And  so  the  next  night,  Brown  and  his  physicians  were 
on  hand,  with  a  vial  of  concentrated  ammonia  and  a  quantity  (q.  s.) 
of  dolichos  pruriens  (cowhage).  This  'cow  itch,'  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  is  the  sharp  hair  of  a  plant,  and  when  applied  to  the  skin,  it  acts 
mechanically  for  a  long  time,  tormenting  the  sufferer  like  so  many 
thistles  or  needles  being  constantly  thrust  into  the  nerves.  No  one, 
I  am  sure,  would  willingly  consent  to  suffer  the  application  of  cow 
hage  to  his  body  more  than  once.  Brown  bore  it  like  a  hero.  But, 
then,  he  had  the  advantage  of  the  entranced  lady  —  the  skin  of  his 
neck  looking  like  sole  leather;  it  was  tanned  by  the  sun,  and  looked 
as  if  it  was  impervious.  Not  so,  however,  when  the  ammonia  was 
held  to  his  nose;  for  then,  by  a  sudden  jerk  of  his  head,  it  became 
manifest  that  he  could  not,  by  his  own  volition,  screw  up  his  nervous 
system  to  endure  what  I  had  rendered  a  timid  lady  able  to  bear 
without  any  manifestation  of  pain.  The  infliction  upon  Brown  was 
a  terrible  one,  for  he  confessed,  three  days  afterwards,  that  he  had 
not  been  able  to  sleep  at  all  since  the  cowhage  was  rubbed  into  his 
neck.  In  submitting  himself  to  that  test,  the  audience  declared  him 
'foolhardy,'  as  it  proved  nothing  against  the  genuineness  of  my 
experiments.  It  would  not  follow,  that  because  he  could  endure 
an  extraordinary  amount  of  physical  pain,  therefore  another  per 
son  could  do  the  same.  The  degree  of  COURAGE  manifested  by 
John  Brown  made  him  the  extraordinary  man  he  was.  ..." 

The  church  Brown  attended  while  in  Springfield  was  natu 
rally  the  Zion  Methodist,  for  it  was  formed  by  dissenters  from 
an  older  church  because  of  their  anti-slavery  views.  John 
Brown  found  also  a  congenial  friend  in  a  Mr.  Conkling,  a 
clergyman,  who  later  became  estranged  from  his  congregation 
by  reason  of  his  Abolition  opinions.60  While  John  Brown 
himself  never  faltered  in  his  religious  faith,  the  backsliding 
of  his  sons  disturbed  him  not  a  little,  so  that  he  wrote  to  them 
a  number  of  pathetically  earnest  letters,  endeavoring  to  recall 
them  to  the  ways  of  godliness.  It  was  characteristic  of  him 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       69 

that,  strong  as  was  his  nature  and  intense  as  was  his  belief 
in  the  orthodox  Congregational  faith,  this  difference  of  reli 
gious  conviction  never  interfered  with  the  affection  which 
existed  between  father  and  sons.  To  some  of  his  children  he 
addressed  the  following  letter  on  this  subject  while  in  Troy, 
New  York:51 

TROY,  N.  Y.,  23  Jan.  1852  3 
DEAR  CHILDREN: 

I  returned  here  on  the  evening  of  the  I2th  inst.  and  left  Akron 
on  the  I4th,  the  date  of  your  letter  to  John.  I  was  very  glad  to 
hear  from  you  again  in  that  way,  not  having  received  anything  from 
you  while  at  home.  I  left  all  in  usual  health  and  as  comfortable  as 
could  be  expected;  but  am  afflicted  with  you  on  account  of  your 
little  Boy.  Hope  to  hear  by  return  mail  that  you  are  all  well.  As 
in  this  trouble  you  are  only  tasteing  of  a  cup  I  have  had  to  drink  of 
deeply,  and  very  often ;  I  need  not  tell  how  fully  I  can  sympathize 
with  you  in  your  anxiety.  My  attachments  to  this  world  have  been 
very  strong,  and  Divine  Providence  has  been  cutting  me  loose  one 
bond  after  another,  up  to  the  present  time,  but  notwithstanding 
I  have  so  much  to  remind  me  that  all  ties  must  soon  be  severed  j'  I 
am  still  clinging  like  those  who  have  hardly  taken  a  single  lesson.  I 
really  hope  some  of  my  family  may  understand  that  this  world  is 
not  the  home  of  man;  and  act  in  accordance.  Why  may  I  not  hope 
this  of  you?  When  I  look  forward  as  regards  the  religious  prospects 
of  my  numerous  family  (the  most  of  them)  I  am  forced  to  say,  and 
to  feel  too;  that  I  have  little,  very  little  to  cheer.  That  this  should 
be  so,  is  I  perfectly  well  understand,  the  legitimate  fruit  of  my  own 
planting;  and  that  only  increases  my  punishment.  Some  ten  or 
twelve  years  ago  I  was  cheered  with  the  belief  that  my  elder  chil 
dren  had  chosen  the  Lord  to  be  their  God;  and  I  valued  much  on 
their  influence  and  example  in  attoning  for  my  deficiency  and  bad 
example  with  the  younger  children.  But,  where  are  we  now?  Sev 
eral  have  gone  to  where  neither  a  good  or  a  bad  example  from  me 
will  better  their  condition  or  prospects,  or  make  them  the  worse. 
The  younger  part  of  my  children  seem  to  be  far  less  thoughtful  and 
disposed  to  reflection  than  were  my  older  children  at  their  age.  I 
will  not  dwell  longer  on  this  distressing  subject  but  only  say  that 
so  far  as  I  have  gone;  it  is  from  no  disposition  to  reflect  on  anyone 
but  myself.  I  think  I  can  clearly  discover  where  I  wandered  from 
the  Road.  How  to  now  get  on  it  with  my  family  is  beyond  my  abil 
ity  to  see;  or  my  courage  to  hope.  God  grant  you  thorough  conver 
sion  from  sin,  and  full  purpose  of  heart  to  continue  steadfast  in  his 
ways  through  the  very  short  season  of  trial  you  will  have  to  pass. 

How  long  we  shall  continue  here  is  beyond  our  ability  to  foresee, 
but  think  it  very  probable  that  if  you  write  us  by  return  mail  we 
shall  get  your  letter.  Something  may  possibly  happen  that  may 


70  JOHN  BROWN 

enable  us,  or  one  of  us,  to  go  and  see  you  but  do  not  look  for  us.  I 
should  feel  it  a  great  privilege  if  I  could.  We  seem  to  be  getting 
along  well  with  our  business,  so  far ;  but  progress  miserably  slow. 
My  journeys  back  and  forth  this  winter  have  been  very  tedious. 
If  you  find  it  difficult  for  you  to  pay  for  Douglas  paper,  I  wish  you 
would  let  me  know  as  I  know  I  took  some  liberty  in  ordering  it  con 
tinued.  You  have  been  very  kind  in  helping  me  and  I  do  not  mean 
to  make  myself  a  burden. 

Your  Affectionate  Father 

JOHN  BROWN. 

On  the  6th  of  August  of  the  same  year  he  again  took  up  the 
religious  question  with  his  son  John  in  this  fashion : 52 

AKRON,  Ohio  6th  Aug  1852 
DEAR  SON  JOHN 

One  word  in  regard  to  the  religious  belief  of  yourself,  &  the  ideas 
of  several  of  my  children.  My  affections  are  too  deep  rooted  to  be 
alienated  from  them,  but  'my  Grey  Hairs  must  go  down  to  the  grave 
in  sorrow,'  unless  the  'true  God'  forgive  their  denyal,  &  rejection 
of  him,  &  open  their  Eyes.  I  am  perfectly  conscious  that  their  '  Eyes 
are  blinded'  to  the  real  Truth,  &  minds  prejudiced  by  Hearts  un 
reconciled  to  their  maker  &  judge;  &  that  they  have  no  right  appre 
ciation  of  his  true  character,  nor  of  their  Own.  'A  deceived  Heart 
hath  turned  them  aside.'  That  God  in  infinite  mercy  for  Christs 
sake  may  grant  to  you  &  Wealthy,  &  to  my  other  Children  '  Eyes 
to  see '  is  the  most  earnest  and  constant  prayer  of  your  Affectionate 
Father 

JOHN  BROWN. 

Just  a  year  later,  John  Brown  returned  to  the  charge  and 
spent  a  month  writing  a  letter  of  pamphlet  length,  mostly 
composed  of  Scriptural  quotations  strung  together.53  "I  do 
not  feel  'estranged  from  my  children,' "  he  wrote,  "but  I  cannot 
flatter  them,  nor  cry  peace  when  there  is  no  peace."  He  was 
particularly  pained  because,  as  he  said  of  his  younger  sons: 
"After  thorough  and  candid  investigation  they  have  discovered 
the  Bible  to  be  all  a  fiction !  Shall  I  add  that  a  letter  received 
from  you  sometime  since  gave  me  little  else  than  pain  and 
sorrow?  'The  righteous  shall  hold  on  his  way:'  'By  and  by 
he  is  offended.' ' 

It  was  his  all-impelling  desire  to  help  the  colored  people 
that  led  him  early  to  plan  for  the  removal  of  his  family  to  the 
Adirondacks.  Gerrit  Smith,  of  Peterboro,  had  offered  to  give, 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       71 

on  August  i,  1846,  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  acres  of  land  of  his  vast  patrimony  in  northern 
New  York  to  worthy  colored  people,  whom  he  aided  in  many 
other  ways  as  well.84  By  April  8,  j8^8,  John  Brown  had  fully 
decided  to  settle  his  family  in  the  midst  of  the  negro  colonists, 
in  order  to  aid  them  by  example  and  precept.  He  later  visited 
his  brother-in-law,  Orson  Day,  who  was  then-living  in  White 
hall,  New  York,  and  from  Mr.  Day's  home  went  on  into  the 
Adirondack  wilderness  as  far  as  the  little  negro  settlement 
of  North  Elba,  where  he  became  convinced  that  this  was  the 
place  for  him  to  settle.  He  was  at  once  charmed  with  the 
superb  scenery  which  has  made  this  region  of  late  such  a 
highly  prized  summer  resort.  The  great  mountains  appealed 
irresistibly  to  him,  and  the  negro  colony  offered  an  opportu 
nity  for  training  men  in  the  armed  warfare  against  slavery 
which  was  now  taking  shape  in  his  mind.  Gerrit  Smith,  whom 
Brown  had  visited  on  April  8,  1848,  before  seeing  North  Elba, 
was  greatly  pleased  at  the  prospect  of  having  so  sturdy  and 
experienced  a  farmer  settle  on  his  land,  and  became  forthwith 
a  warm  friend  of  his  visitor  from  Springfield.55  Thus  began  a 
relationship  of  enormous  value  to  John  Brown  as  the  years 
passed,  without  which  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  he  could 
have  obtained  the  " greatest  or  principal  object"  of  his  life  to 
the  extent  he  did.  No  one  in  the  North  was  more  earnest  in 
his  opposition  to  slavery  than  Gerrit  Smith,  and  none  could 
reinforce  their  opinions  with  such  princely  generosity,  or  gave 
as  readily  and  as  unselfishly.  Chosen  a  member  of  Congress 
in  1852,  as  an  independent  candidate,  Gerrit  Smith  had  long 
been  no  mean  figure  in  State  politics.  Indeed,  in  commenting 
on  his  going  to  Congress,  Horace  Greeley  thus  described  Mr. 
Smith  to  his  readers:56  "We  are  heartily  glad  that  Gerrit 
Smith  is  going  to  Washington.  He  is  an  honest,  brave,  kind- 
hearted  Christian  philanthropist,  whose  religion  is  not  put 
aside  with  his  Sunday  cloak,  but  lasts  him  clear  through  the 
week.  We  think  him  very  wrong  in  some  of  his  notions  of 
political  economy,  and  quite  mistaken  in  his  ideas  that  the 
Constitution  is  inimical  to  slavery,  and  that  injustice  cannot 
be  legalized ;  but  we  heartily  wish  more  such  great,  pure,  loving 
souls  could  find  their  way  into  Congress.  He  will  find  his  seat 
there  anything  but  comfortable,  but  his  presence  there  will  do 


72  JOHN  BROWN 

good,  and  the  country  will  know  him  better  and  esteem  him 
more  highly  than  it  has  yet  done."  Of  this  philanthropist 
Brown  purchased  several  farms,  paying  for  them  as  rapidly  as 
his  circumstances  permitted. 

The  first  removal  of  his  family  to  North  Elba  or  Timbucto, 
as  it  was  called  in  its  early  days,  occurred  in  the  spring  of  1849, 
the  year  of  his  European  trip.  As  there  was  no  home  on  his 
land  and  he  could  not  himself  reside  much  in  North  Elba, 
because  of  the  necessity  of  carrying  on  the  business  in  Spring 
field,  John  Brown  hired  for  two  years  the  farm  of  a  Mr.  Flan 
ders,  on  the  road  from  Keene  to  Lake  Placid.57  It  had  a  good 
barn  on  it,  but  only  a  tiny  one-story  house.  "  It  is  small,"  said 
Brown  to  his  family,  "but  the  main  thing  is  all  keep  good 
natured."  Some  fine  Devon  cattle  bought  in  Connecticut 
were  driven  to  the  new  home  by  three  sons,  Owen,  Watson  and 
Salmon,  and  with  these  animals  Brown  won,  in  September, 
1850,  a  prize  at  the  Essex  County  Fair  by  an  exhibition  of  cat 
tle  which,  according  to  the  annual  report  of  the  exhibition  so 
ciety  in  control,  "attracted  great  attention  and  added  much 
to  the  interest  of  the  fair."  58  He  was  able,  also,  to  buy  an  ex 
cellent  pair  of  horses;  the  driver,  Thomas  Jefferson,  a  colored 
man,  who  at  the  same  time  moved  his  family  from  Troy  to 
North  Elba,  was  in  Brown's  employ  until  the  first  stay  in  this 
bleak  mountain  home  came  to  an  end.  That  Brown  felt  deeply 
his  responsibility  towards  his  negro  neighbors  appears  from 
the  following  extract  from  a  letter,  one  of  many  written  to 
Willis  A.  Hodges,  who  was  likewise  active  in  settling  negroes 
on  the  Smith  lands : 59 

SPRINGFIELD,  MASS.  January  22,  1849. 

FRIEND  HODGES  —  DEAR  SIR:  Yours  of  the  nth  January  reached 
me  a  day  or  two  since.  We  are  all  glad  to  hear  from  you  again  and 
that  you  were  getting  along  well  with  the  exception  of  your  own 
ill  health.  We  hope  to  hear  better  news  from  you  in  regard  to  that 
the  next  we  get  from  you.  .  .  . 

Say  to  my  colored  friends  with  you  that  they  will  be  no  losers  by 
keeping  their  patience  a  little  about  building  lots.  They  can  busy 
themselves  in  cutting  plenty  of  hard  wood  and  in  getting  any  work 
they  can  find  until  spring,  and  they  need  not  fear  getting  too  much 
wood  provided.  Do  not  let  anyone  forget  the  vast  importance  of 
sustaining  the  very  best  character  for  honesty,  truth,  industry  and 
faithfulness.  I  hope  every  one  will  be  determined  to  not  merely 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       73 

conduct  as  well  as  the  whites,  but  to  set  them  an  example  in  all 
things.  I  am  much  pleased  that  your  nephew  has  concluded  to  hang 
on  like  a  man. 
With  my  best  wishes  for  every  one,  I  remain, 

Yours  in  truth 

JOHN  BROWN 

P.  S.  I  hear  that  all  are  getting  through  the  winter  middling  well 
at  Timbucto,  for  which  I  would  praise  the  Lord.  J.  B. 

The  original  settlers  were  not  particularly  pleased  at  the 
arrival  of  so  many  colored  people,  and  were  reluctant  at  first 
to  supply  them  with  provisions,  charging,  when  they  did 
so,  exorbitant  prices.  So  rapidly  were  the  new  arrivals' 
means  exhausted  that  there  was  some  danger  of  famine.  When 
John  Brown  came  on  the  scene,  he  at  once  defended  them 
against  those  who  sought  to  injure  them,  saving  to  one  col 
ored  man  the  farm  of  which  he  was  being  cheated.  Seeing 
their  destitution,  he  sought  in  every  way  to  provide  work 
for  them,  and  on  each  Sabbath  when  he  was  there,  he  called 
the  negroes  together  for  instruction  in  the  Scriptures.  On 
October  25,  1848,  before  he  had  moved  to  North  Elba,  he 
bought  five  barrels  of  pork  and  five  of  flour,  and  shipped 
them  to  Mr.  Hodges;  the  contents  of  at  least  four  of  these 
barrels  were  distributed  among  the  needy  colored  at  Tim 
bucto.60  But  even  with  all  of  the  supervision  and  aid  John 
Brown  and  Hodges  gave,  these  settlements  were  not  a  success. 
Beautiful  as  the  region  was  and  is,  it  is  not  a  farming  coun 
try.  To  live  required  the  most  arduous  labor  in  the  brief 
summer  season.  There  were  few  tourists  to  help  out  the  set 
tlers'  income,  and  the  cold,  desolate  and  bleak  winters  bore 
heavily  upon  all,  but  particularly  upon  the  negroes,  many  of 
whom  were  there  by  virtue  of  their  having  fled  from  slavery 
in  the  warm  Southern  States,  where  they  had  known  hitherto 
no  stimulus  to  labor  save  the  lash.  There  were  good  common 
schools,  and  a  church  at  which,  in  summer,  visiting  ministers 
of  note  preached.61  But  with  all  that,  North  Elba  was  a  dreary 
and  an  inaccessible  place,  particularly  in  winter.  On  one  occa 
sion,  strong  as  he  was,  John  Brown  nearly  lost  his  life  in  the 
deep  snow  in  endeavoring  to  walk  in  from  Keene.  "  Before  he 
came  within  several  miles  of  home,"  so  his  daughter  Ruth  re 
membered  the  story,62  "  he  got  so  tired  and  lame  that  he  had  to 


74  JOHN  BROWN 

sit  down  in  the  road.  The  snow  was  very  deep  and  the  road  but 
little  trodden.  He  got  up  again  after  a  little  while,  went  on  as 
far  as  he  could,  and  sat  down  once  more.  He  walked  a  long 
distance  in  that  way,  and  at  last  lay  down  with  fatigue,  in  the 
deep  snow  beside  the  path,  and  thought  he  should  get  chilled 
there  and  die.  While  lying  so,  a  man  passed  him  on  foot,  but 
did  not  notice  him.  Father  guessed  the  man  thought  he  was 
drunk,  or  else  did  not  see  him.  He  lay  there  and  rested  a  while 
and  then  started  on  again,  though  in  great  pain,  and  made  out 
to  reach  the  first  house,  Robert  Scott's.  ..." 

Shortly  after  the  Brown  family  moved  into  the  Flanders 
house  at  North  Elba,  Richard  Henry  Dana,  Jr.,  of  Boston,  and 
two  friends  came  to  their  home,  June  27,  1849,  in  a  state 
of  utter  exhaustion,  having  lost  their  way  in  the  woods  and 
been  for  twenty-four  hours  without  food.  They  were  kindly 
received  and  cared  for.  Fortunately,  Mr.  Dana  kept  an  exten 
sive  diary,  which  enabled  him  in  after  years  to  publish  the  fol 
lowing  account  from  it  of  his  impressions  of  the  Brown  family 
in  the  Adirondacks:63 

"The  place  belonged  to  a  man  named  Brown,  originally  from 
Berkshire  in  Massachusetts,  a  thin,  sinewy,  hard-favored,  clear 
headed,  honest-minded  man,  who  had  spent  all  his  days  as  a  frontier 
farmer.  On  conversing  with  him,  we  found  him  well  informed  on 
most  subjects,  especially  in  the  natural  sciences.  He  had  books, 
and  had  evidently  made  a  diligent  use  of  them.  Having  acquired 
some  property,  he  was  able  to  keep  a  good  farm,  and  had  confess 
edly  the  best  cattle  and  best  farming  utensils  for  miles  around. 
His  wife  looked  superior  to  the  poor  place  they  lived  in,  which  was  a 
cabin,  with  only  four  rooms.  She  appeared  to  be  out  of  health.  He 
seemed  to  have  an  unlimited  family  of  children,  from  a  cheerful, 
nice  healthy  woman  of  twenty  or  so,  and  a  full  sized  red-haired  son, 
who  seemed  to  be  foreman  of  the  farm,  through  every  grade  of  boy 
and  girl  to  a  couple  that  could  hardly  speak  plain.  .  .  .  June  29, 
Friday  —  After  breakfast,  started  for  home.  .  .  .  We  stopped  at 
the  Browns'  cabin  on  our  way,  and  took  affectionate  leave  of  the 
family  that  had  shown  us  so  much  kindness.  We  found  them  at 
breakfast,  in  the  patriarchal  style.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brown  and  their 
large  family  of  children  with  the  hired  men  and  women,  including 
three  negroes,  all  at  the  table  together.  Their  meal  was  neat, 
substantial,  and  wholesome." 

John  Brown  was  at  North  Elba  in  January,  1851,  soon  after 
the  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  which  stirred  him  to 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       75 

the  depths  and  had  just  led  him  to  organize  his  Springfield 
Gileadites.  He  at  once  went  around  among  his  colored  friends 
who  were  fugitives  and  urged  them  to  resist  the  law  at  all  costs. 
Men  and  women,  he  declared,  should  arm  themselves  and  re 
fuse  to  be  taken  alive.  He  told  his  children  of  this  wicked  bill, 
and  commanded  them  to  join  in  resisting  any  attempt  that 
might  be  made  to  drag  back  into  Southern  chains  their  neigh 
bors  who  had  been  slaves,  and  to  give  no  thought  to  possible 
fines  and  imprisonment.  "Our  faithful  boy,  Cyrus,"  wrote 
Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson  afterwards,  "was  one  of  that 
class  and  it  aroused  our  feelings  so  that  we  would  all  have 
defended  him,  if  the  women  folks  had  had  to  resort  to  hot 
water.  Father  said  ' Their  cup  of  iniquity  is  almost  full.' ' 

The  reasons  for  John  Brown's  abandonment  of  North  Elba 
in  1 85 1, after  only  two  years  there,  were  the  burden  of  the  law 
suits  of  Perkins  &  Brown,  which  kept  him  travelling  about 
from  one  place  to  another,  and  the  necessity  of  continuing  in 
partnership  with  Mr.  Perkins  in  the  farming  and  sheep-raising 
side  of  their  business.  It  was  in  March,  1851,  that  he  again 
moved  his  family,  now  so  accustomed  to  shifting  its  domicile, 
back  to  Akron,  the  sons  driving  overland  the  prize  Devon  cat 
tle.64  As  we  have  seen, the  partnership  with  Mr.  Perkins  could 
not  be  terminated  as  quickly  thereafter  as  John  Brown  had 
hoped,  and  when  it  was,  he  was  compelled  to  work  the  three 
hired  farms  for  another  year  before  he  had  accumulated  suffi 
cient  money  to  move  back  to  North  Elba  and  to  make  possible 
his  venture  to  Kansas.  Throughout  1854  he  was  busily  plan 
ning  for  his  removal  to  North  Elba  and  for  the  purchase  of  an 
other  small  farm  there.  The  record-breaking  drought  of  1854 
ruined  many  farmers  in  Ohio,  but  he  fared  much  better,  accord 
ing  to  a  letter  to  his  children  of  August  24,  1854,  tnan  most 
people.  His  two  sons,  Jason  and  Owen,  were  living  on  a  large 
farm  belonging  to  Mr.  Perkins  near  Tallmadge;  they  with 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  had,  as  already  stated,  made  up  their  minds 
to  seek  new  homes  in  Kansas,  in  order  to  help  stem  the  slave- 
power  which,  with  the  opening  of  that  Territory  by  the  Kan 
sas  and  Nebraska  act  of  May  30,  1854,  was  now  seeking  to 
make  Kansas  its  own.  On  February  13,  1855,  John  Brown 
felt  certain  that  he  could  get  off  to  North  Elba  with  his 
immediate  family  in  March;  to  accomplish  this  purpose  he 


76  JOHN  BROWN 

was  willing,  if  necessary,  to  sacrifice  some  of  his  Devon  cat 
tle.65  Not  until  June,  1855,  however,  was  he  able  to  make  the 
move: 

ROCKFORD  ILL  4th  June  1855 
DEAR  CHILDREN 

I  write  just  to  say  that  I  have  finally  sold  my  cattle  without  mak 
ing  much  sacrifise;  &  expect  to  be  on  the  way  home  Tomorrow. 
Oliver  expects  to  remain  behind  &  go  to  Kansas.  After  I  get  home 
I  expect  to  set  out  with  the  family  for  North  Elba  as  soon  as  we 
can  get  ready:  &  we  may  possibly  get  off  this  Week;  but  hardly 
think  we  can.  I  have  heard  nothing  further  as  yet  from  the  Boys 
at  Kansas  All  were  well  at  home  a  few  days  since. 

Your  Affectionate  Father 

JOHN  BROWNM 

When  he  and  his  charges  finally  arrived  at  North  Elba,  they 
moved  into  an  unplastered  four-room  house,  the  rudest  kind 
of  a  pioneer  home,  built  for  him  by  his  son-in-law,  Henry 
Thompson,  who  had  married  his  daughter  Ruth.  Here  the 
family  still  lived  when  the  disaster  at  Harper's  Ferry  deprived 
it  of  its  head  and  two  of  his  most  promising  sons.  But  though 
John  Brown  was  so  attracted  by  North  Elba  as  to  buy  three 
farms  there,67  and  though  the  very  pioneering  aspect  of  the 
new  life  appealed  to  him,  his  restlessness  left  him  no  peace. 
He  was  now  ready  to  abandon  the  field  to  which  in  the  year 
before  he  had  felt  himself  committed  to  operate,  and  to  follow 
his  sons  to  Kansas.  So  strong  was  the  call  to  duty  there  that 
he  was  impelled  to  leave  everything  at  North  Elba, —  the  un 
completed  house,  the  newly  arrived  family  with  no  fixed  means 
of  support  and  the  severest  of  winter  climates  to  contend  with, 
his  activity  among  his  colored  neighbors,  and  his  still  unpaid 
debts  in  Ohio  and  elsewhere.  Besides  his  sons,  Owen,  Oliver, 
Salmon,  Frederick,  Jason  and  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Henry  Thomp 
son,  too,  yielded  to  the  desire  to  aid  in  carving  out  with  axe 
and  rifle  Kansas' s  destiny.  There  remained  at  North  Elba 
of  the  grown  sons  only  Watson,  then  in  his  twentieth  year,  to 
aid  their  brave  mother  and  home-keeper.  But  she  was  quite 
ready  to  fight  cold  and  privation,  if  thereby  her  husband  and 
sons  could  live  up  to  what  they  as  truly  considered  the  call  of 
duty  as  did  their  Revolutionary  ancestor,  who  gave  up  his  life 
in  New  York  City,  the  appeal  to  arms  in  1777. 


HIS  GREATEST  OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT       77 

Thenceforth  John  Brown  could  give  free  rein  to  his  Wander 
lust;  the  shackles  of  business  life  dropped  from  him.  He  was 
now  bowed  and  rapidly  turning  gray;  to  everyone's  lips  the  ad 
jective  "  old  "  leaped  as  they  saw  him.  But  his  was  not  the  age 
of  senility,  nor  of  weariness  with  life ;  nor  were  the  lines  of  care 
due  solely  to  family  and  business  anxieties,  or  the  hard  labor  of 
the  fields.  They  were  rather  the  marks  of  the  fires  consuming 
within ;  of  the  indomitable  purpose  that,  was  the  mainspring  of 
every  action;  of  a  life  devoted,  a  spirit  inspired.  Emancipa 
tion  from  the  counter  and  the  harrow  came  joyfully  to  him  at 
the  time  of  life  when  most  men  begin  to  long  for  rest  and  the 
repose  of  a  quiet,  well-ordered  home.  Thenceforth  he  was  free 
to  move  where  he  pleased,  to  devote  every  thought  to  his  bat 
tle  with  the  slave-power  he  staggered,  which  then  knew  no 
thing  of  his  existence. 

The  metamorphosis  was  now  complete.  The  staid,  sombre 
merchant  and  patriarchal  family-head  was  ready  to  become 
Captain  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie,  at  the  mere  mention  of 
whose  name  Border  Ruffians  and  swashbuckling  adherents 
of  the  institution  of  slavery  trembled  and  often  fled.  Kansas 
gave  John  Brown  the  opportunity  to  test  himself  as  a  guerrilla- 
leader  for  which  he  had  longed;  for  no  other  purpose  did  he 
proceed  to  the  Territory ;  to  become  a  settler  there,  as  he  had 
hoped  to  in  Virginia  in  1840,  was  furthest  from  his  thoughts. 
Leadership  came  readily  to  him;  to  those  who  fell  under  his 
sway,  it  seemed  as  natural  that  he  should  become  the  com 
mander  as  that  there  should  be  a  President  in  Washington. 
Even  those  who  walked  not  in  his  ways  respected  him  as  a 
captain  of  grim  determination,  of  iron  will.  Of  no  particular 
distinction  as  an  executive  in  his  business  enterprises,  he  had 
somehow  or  other  acquired  in  the  home  circle,  in  the  marts 
of  trade,  in  the  quiet  fields  and  woods,  that  something  which 
makes  some  men  as  inevitably  leaders  as  others  are  predes 
tined  to  become  satellites  or  lieutenants  of  those  of  stronger 
will,  greater  imagination  and  clearer  prevision.  Imagination 
our  wool-merchant  had,  even  if  its  range  was  not  great;  for 
when  the  hour  came  to  act,  he  was  on  hand  with  his  nerves 
under  control,  his  head  clear,  his  courage  unbounded,  ready 
to  meet  emergencies.  Indeed,  one  may  ask  if  he  really  had 
nerves,  so  complete  was  their  subordination  to  the  ego,  to  the 


78  JOHN  BROWN 

will  that  forced  its  own  way,  either  when  it  was  a  matter  of 
convincing  rebellious  followers  of  the  wisdom  of  the  plan  they 
revolted  against,  or  of  standing  steadily  on  the  scaffold  trap 
door  to  eternity.  Yet  this  man  was  the  product  of  piping 
times  of  peace ;  of  the  counting-room  and  the  petty  life  of  the 
rural  follower  of  a  trade,  which  are  so  widely  supposed  to 
weaken  the  fibre,  attenuate  the  blood  and  develop  the  craven. 
The  secret  of  this  riddle  lies  not  merely  in  the  Puritan  inher 
itances  of  John  Brown,  nor  in  his  iron  will,  nor  in  his  ability 
to  visualize  himself  and  his  men  in  a  mountain  stronghold  of 
the  Alleghenies.  To  all  these  powers  of  an  intense  nature  were 
added  the  driving  force  of  a  mighty  and  unselfish  purpose, 
and  the  readiness  to  devote  life  itself  to  the  welfare  of  others. 
However  one  may  dislike  the  methods  he  adopted  or  the 
views  he  held,  here  is,  after  all,  the  explanation  of  the  forging 
of  this  rough,  natural  leader  of  men.  "Why,"  said  one  of  his 
abolition  co-workers,  who  believed  in  very  different  means 
of  attacking  slavery,  "it  is  the  best  investment  for  the  soul's 
welfare  possible  to  take  hold  of  something  that  is  righteous 
but  unpopular.  ...  It  teaches  us  to  know  ourselves,  to  know 
what  we  are  relying  on,  whether  we  love  the  praise  of  men, 
or  the  praise  of  God."  The  essentially  ennobling  feature  of 
John  Brown's  career,  that  which  enabled  him  to  draw  men 
to  him  as  if  by  a  magnet,  was  his  willingness  to  suffer  for 
others, — in  short,  the  straightforward  unselfishness  of  the 
man. 

As  John  Brown  left  for  Kansas,  he  turned  once  more 
to^the  members  of  his  family  and  said:  "If  it  is  so  painful 
for  us  to  part  with  the  hope  of  meeting  again,  how  of  poor 
slaves?  "» 


CHAPTER  III 
IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD 

"  IF  you  or  any  of  my  family  are  disposed  to  go  to  Kansas  or 
Nebraska,  with  a  view  to  help  defeat  Satan  and  his  legions  in 
that  direction,  I  have  not  a  word  to  say;  but  I  feel  committed 
to  operate  in  another  part  of  the  field.  If  I  were  not  so  com 
mitted,  I  would  be  on  my  way  this  fall," —  thus  it  was  that 
John  Brown  wrote  to  his  son  John  on  August  21,  1 854.^  The 
latter  and  his  brothers  had,  as  we  have  seen,  grown  restless 
in  Ohio,  where  they  then  resided  with  but  indifferent  prospects 
for  material  success,  particularly  because  of  the  great  damage 
done  by  the  drought  of  1854  ;2  and  the  emigration  of  their 
uncle,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Lyle  Adair,  to  Osawatomie,  Kansas, 
had  determined  their  settling  in  that  locality.3  To  Kansas 
they  would,  however,  have  gone  had  he  not  preceded  them, 
for  their  inherited  antipathy  to  slavery  made  them  earnest 
observers  of  the  exciting  political  conditions  resulting  from 
the  Kansas- Nebraska  bill,  which  left  to  the  settlers  them 
selves  the  decision  whether  slavery  should  or  should  not  exist 
within  those  Territories.  This  abrogation  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820,  which  had  prohibited  slavery  north  of 
36°  30'  north  latitude,  roused  its  enemies  in  the  North  to 
unwonted  efforts.  If,  they  reasoned,  the  South  could  thus 
abrogate  a  sacred  agreement  which  had  for  thirty-four  years 
prevented  the  growth  of  slavery  toward  the  North,  it  might 
within  a  few  years  permit  the  extension  of  its  favorite  institu 
tion  to  still  other  portions  of  the  original  Louisiana  purchase 
acquired  from  France  in  1803.  Only  seven  years  had  then 
elapsed  since  the  unholy  war  with  Mexico  had  made  possible 
the  annexation  of  the  great  State  of  Texas  and  the  other  Terri 
tories  acquired  by  the  peace  treaty  of  1848.  That  tremendous 
expansion  to  the  south  and  southwest  would,  it  was  thought, 
satisfy  the  slaveholders  for  years  to  come.  But  the  wasteful 
ness  and  short-sightedness  of  their  methods  of  cotton-culture, 
the  uneconomic  and  shiftless  character  of  slave  labor  itself, 
made  the  appetite  for  virgin  lands  insatiable. 


8o  JOHN  BROWN 

Moreover,  Southern  leaders  were  blind  neither  to  the  danger 
to  their  political  supremacy  involved  in  the  carving  of  new 
free  States  out  of  the  great  West,  whose  possibilities  were  now 
beginning  to  be  understood  because  of  the  rush  to  Califor 
nia,  nor  to  the  peculiarly  dangerous  position  of  their  outpost 
State,  Missouri.4  With  Illinois  on  the  east  and  Iowa  on  the 
north,  if  Kansas  and  Nebraska  should  become  free  territory, 
Missouri  would  be  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  Abolitionists, 
and  the  safety  of  her  unpaid  labor  system  would  be  gravely 
menaced.  Since  the  popular  indignation  in  the  North  had 
failed  to  prevent  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill, 
for  which  forty-four  Northern  Democrats  voted  in  the  House 
and  fourteen  in  the  Senate,  under  the  lead  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  the  North  could  revenge  itself  only  by  preventing 
the  return  to  Washington  of  thirty-seven  out  of  the  forty- 
four  Congressmen,5  and  by  throwing  itself  heartily  into  the 
work  of  beating  the  South  at  its  own  game  of  colonization. 
By  emigrant  aid  societies,  by  widespread  appeals  to  the 
liberty-loving  citizens  of  the  North  to  settle  Kansas,  by  mass 
meetings  and  public  subscriptions  to  the  funds  raised  to  for 
ward  settlers  in  large  parties  to  the  new  Territories,  —  in  a 
hundred  different  ways,  some  of  the  necessary  thousands  were 
induced  to  become  a  living  bulwark  to  the  extension  of  slav 
ery.  Fortunately  for  them,  the  propagandists  were  aided  enor 
mously  by  the  rich  character  of  the  Kansas  soil,  the  beauty 
of  its  prairies,  the  charm  of  its  climate,  and  the  promise  of  its 
streams.  Had  there  been  no  question  of  slavery  or  freedom 
involved,  there  must  have  been  the  same  prompt  taking  up 
of  the  public  lands  which  has  inevitably  followed  the  throwing 
open  of  new  territory  to  settlement.  The  sons  of  John  Brown 
were  no  more  unmoved  by  the  "  glowing  accounts  of  the 
extraordinary  fertility,  healthfulness  and  beauty  of  the  terri 
tory  of  Kansas,"  than  were  thousands  of  others  who  sold  off 
their  homes  in  New  York,  Ohio  and  Illinois  to  better  their 
fortunes  beyond  the  Missouri  River.  To  many  of  them,  as  to 
the  Browns,  the  opportunity  to  help  save  Kansas  from  the 
curse  of  slavery  was  heartily  welcome;  to  multitudes  of  others 
this  was  a  subsidiary  issue,  which  interested  them  but  little 
until  they  suddenly  found  themselves  in  the  maelstrom  of 
Kansas  political  passions  and  compelled  to  take  sides,  what 
ever  their  original  opinions  or  desires. 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD         81 

Owen,  Frederick  and  Salmon  Brown  left  Ohio  for  Kansas, 
all  unsuspicious  of  the  tragedies  before  them,  in  October,  1854, 
taking  eleven  head  of  cattle  and  three  horses,  their  joint 
property,  to  Chicago  by  water,  and  driving  them  thence  to 
Meridosia,  Illinois.  Here  men  and  animals  wintered  until  the 
arrival  of  spring  made  it  possible  for  them  to  cross  the  Mis 
souri.6  On  April  20,  1855,  they  entered  Kansas,  and  on  May 
7,  Jason  and  John  were  also  at  Osawatomie,7  having  left  Ohio 
with  their  families  at  the  opening  of  navigation.*  Theirs  was 
a  typical  Kansas  settler's  journey;  to  hundreds  of  other 
Kansas  home-seekers  would  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  narrative  of 
this  migration  read  almost  as  if  written  of  their  own  experi 
ences  after  leaving  St.  Louis : 

"At  this  period  there  were  no  railroads  west  of  St.  Louis;  our 
journey  must  be  continued  by  boat  on  the  Missouri  at  a  time  of 
extremely  low  water,  or  by  stage  at  great  expense.  We  chose  the 
river  route,  taking  passage  on  the  steamer  'New  Lucy,'  which  too 
late  we  found  crowded  with  passengers,  mostly  men  from  the  South 
bound  for  Kansas.  That  they  were  from  the  South  was  plainly  in 
dicated  by  their  language  and  dress;  while  their  drinking,  profanity, 
and  display  of  revolvers  and  bowie-knives,  openly  wearing  them  as 
an  essential  part  of  their  make-up,  clearly  showed  the  class  to  which 
they  belonged  and  that  their  mission  was  to  aid  in  establishing 
slavery  in  Kansas. 

"A  box  of  fruit-trees  and  grape-vines  which  my  brother  Jason 
had  brought  from  Ohio,  our  plow  and  the  few  agricultural  imple 
ments  we  had  on  the  deck  of  that  steamer,  looked  lonesome,  for 
these  were  all  we  could  see  which  were  adapted  to  the  occupations 
of  peace.  Then  for  the  first  time  arose  in  our  mind  the  query:  Must 
the  fertile  prairies  of  Kansas,  through  a  struggle  at  arms,  be  first 
secured  to  freedom  before  free  men  can  sow  and  reap?  If  so,  how 
poorly  were  we  prepared  for  such  work  will  be  seen  when  I  say  that 
for  arms  for  five  of  us  brothers  we  had  only  two  small  squirrel  rifles 
and  one  revolver.  But  before  we  reached  our  destination  other 
matters  claimed  our  attention.  Cholera,  which  then  prevailed  to 
some  extent  at  St.  Louis,  broke  out  among  our  passengers,  a  num 
ber  of  whom  died.  Among  these,  Brother  Jason's  son,  Austin,  aged 
four  years,  the  elder  of  his  two  children,  fell  a  victim  to  this  scourge, 
and  while  our  boat  lay  by  for  repair  of  a  broken  rudder  at  Waverley, 
Mo.,  we  buried  him  at  night  near  that  panic-stricken  town,  our 

*  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams  states  that  Salmon  and  Oliver  Brown,  as  well  as 
their  father  and  Henry  Thompson,  went  to  Kansas  only  to  fight,  not  to  settle; 
the  others  were  home-seekers.  (See  her  letter  of  September  5, 1886,  to  the  Kan 
sas  Historical  Society.) 


82    .  JOHN  BROWN 

lonely  way  illumined  only  by  the  lightning  of  a  furious  thunder 
storm. 

"True  to  his  spirit  of  hatred  of  Northern  people,  our  captain, 
without  warning  to  us  on  shore,  cast  off  his  lines  and  left  us  to  make 
our  way  by  stage  to  Kansas  City,  to  which  place  we  had  already 
paid  our  fare  by  boat.  Before  we  reached  there,  however,  we  be 
came  very  hungry,  and  endeavored  to  buy  food  at  various  farm 
houses  on  the  way;  but  the  occupants,  judging  from  our  speech 
that  we  were  not  from  the  South,  always  denied  us,  saying,  'We 
have  nothing  for  you.'  The  only  exception  to  this  answer  was  at 
the  stage-house  at  Independence,  Mo. 

"Arrived  in  Kansas,  her  lovely  prairies  and  wooded  streams 
seemed  to  us  indeed  like  a  haven  of  rest.  Here  in  prospect  we  saw 
our  cattle  increased  to  hundreds  and  possibly  to  thousands,  fields 
of  corn,  orchards,  and  vineyards.  At  once  we  set  about  the  work 
through  which  only  our  visions  of  prosperity  could  be  realized.  Our 
tents  would  suffice  for  shelter  until  we  could  plow  our  land,  plant 
corn  and  other  crops,  fruit-trees,  and  vines,  cut  and  secure  us  hay 
enough  of  the  waving  grass  to  supply  our  stock  the  coming  winter."8 

But  if  they  were  thus  apparently  bent  on  the  occupations  of 
peace,  they  were  from  the  beginning  keeping  an  eye  out  for 
the  clash  of  arms.  In  his  very  first  letter  from  the  Territory 
to  his  father,  dated  "Brownsville,"  May  21,  1855,  Salmon, 
while  mentioning  his  "very  pleasant  trip  through  Missouri," 
added : 

"We  saw  some  of  the  curses  of  slavery  and  they  are  many.  .  .  . 
The  boys  have  their  feelings  well  worked  up  so  that  I  think  that 
they  will  fight,  there  is  a  great  lack  of  arms  here  in  Brownsville. 
I  feel  more  like  fight  now  than  I  ever  did  before  and  would  be  glad 
to  go  to  Alabama." 

He  reported  further  that  he  had  no  doubt  of  the  success  of 
their  emigration,  for  they  had  as  many  as  five  good  claims, 
had  planted  considerably  and  could  already  behold  the  first 
tender  shoots  pushing  their  way  into  the  air.  Their  claims 
were  eight  miles  from  Osawatomie,  on  the  very  outskirts  of 
which  stood  and  yet  stands  the  picturesque  log-cabin  which 
for  nearly  fifty  years  served  as  the  homestead  of  the  Ad  air 
family,  and  is  still  prized  by  them  beyond  all  other  earthly 
possessions.  Here  the  Browns  were  certain  of  a  hearty  wel 
come  from  their  father's  half-sister  Florilla  and  her  husband, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Adair. 
v  On  May  20  and  24,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  wrote  a  long, 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD        83 

minutely  detailed  letter  to  his  father,  in  which  appear  clearly 
the  mixed  motives  that  had  led  to  the  emigration.  The  char 
acter  of  the  country,  the  weather  encountered,  the  planting 
operations  and  the  implements  in  use  are  all  set  forth,  as  well 
as  the  low  financial  condition  to  which  their  frontier  venture 
had  already  brought  them,  and  their  almost  general  satisfac 
tion  with  the  change:9 

"...  Salmon  Fredk  and  Owen  say  that  they  never  was  in  a  coun 
try  that  begun  to  please  them  as  well.  And  I  will  say,  that  the 
present  prospect  for  health,  wealth,  and  usefulness  much  exceeds 
even  my  most  sanguine  anticipations.  I  know  of  no  country  where 
a  poor  man  endowed  with  a  share  of  common  sense  &  with  health, 
can  get  a  start  so  easy.  If  we  can  succeed  in  making  this  a  free  State, 
a  great  work  will  be  accomplished  for  mankind." 

But  the  really  important  part  of  the  letter  deals  with  the 
political  impressions  already  acquired  by  the  new  settlers  of 
four  weeks'  standing: 

"  And  now  I  come  to  the  matter,  that  more  than  all  else  I  intended 
should  be  the  principal  subject  of  this  letter.  I  tell  you  the  truth, 
when  I  say  that  while  the  interest  of  despotism  has  secured  to  its 
cause  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  meanest  and  most  desperate 
of  men,  armed  to  the  teeth  with  Revolvers,  Bowie  Knives,  Rifles 
&  Cannon,  —  while  they  are  not  only  thoroughly  organized,  but 
under  pay  from  Slave-holders  —  the  friends  of  freedom  are  not  one 
fourth  of  them  half  armed,  and  as  to  Military  Organization  among 
them  it  no  where  exists  in  this  territory  unless  they  have  recently 
done  something  in  Lawrence.  The  result  of  this  is  that  the  people 
here  exhibit  the  most  abject  and  cowardly  spirit,  whenever  their 
dearest  rights  are  invaded  and  trampled  down  by  the  lawless  bands 
of  Miscreants  which  Missouri  has  ready  at  a  moment's  call  to 
pour  in  upon  them.  This  is  the  general  effect  upon  the  people  here 
so  far  as  I  have  noticed,  there  are  a  few,  and  but  a  few  exceptions. 
Of  course  these  foreign  Scoundrels  know  what  kind  of  'Allies'  they 
have  to  meet.  They  boast  that  they  can  obtain  possession  of  the 
polls  in  any  of  our  election  precincts  without  having  to  fire  a  gun. 
I  enclose  a  piece  which  I  cut  from  a  St.  Louis  paper  named  the  St. 
Louis  'Republican;'  it  shows  the  spirit  which  moves  them.  Now 
Missouri  is  not  alone  in  the  undertaking  to  make  this  a  Slave  State. 
Every  Slaveholding  State  from  Virginia  to  Texas  is  furnishing  men 
and  money  to  fasten  Slavery  upon  this  glorious  land,  by  means  no 
matter  how  foul.  .  .  . 

"Now  the  remedy  we  propose  is,  that  the  Anti  slavery  portion 
of  the  inhabitants  should  immediately,  thoroughly  arm  and  organize 


84  JOHN  BROWN 

themselves  in  military  companies.  In  order  to  effect  this,  some  per 
sons  must  begin  and  lead  in  the  matter.  Here  are  5  men  of  us  who 
are  not  only  anxious  to  fully  prepare,  but  are  thoroughly  deter 
mined  to  fight.  We  can  see  no  other  way  to  meet  the  case.  As  in 
the  language  of  the  memorial  lately  signed  by  the  people  here  and 
sent  to  Congress  petitioning  help,  '  it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  negro 
slavery,  but  it  is  the  enslavement  of  ourselves.' 

"The  General  Government  may  be  petitioned  until  the  people 
here  are  grey,  and  no  redress  will  be  had  so  long  as  it  makes  slavery 
its  paramount  interest.  —  We  have  among  us  5,  I  Revolver,  I  Bowie 
Knife,  I  middling  good  Rifle  I  poor  Rifle,  I  small  pocket  pistol 
and  2  slung  shot.  What  we  need  in  order  to  be  thoroughly  armed 
for  each  man,  is  I  Colts  large  sized  Revolver,  I  Allen  &  Thurbers' 
large  sized  Revolver  manufactured  at  Worcester,  Mass,  I  Minnie 
Rifle  —  they  are  manufactured  somewhere  in  Mass  or  Connecticut 
(Mr.  Paine  of  Springfield  would  probably  know)  and  I  heavy  Bowie 
Knife  —  I  think  the  Minnie  Rifles  are  made  so  that  a  sword  bayo 
net  may  be  attached.  With  these  we  could  compete  with  men  who 
even  possessed  Cannon.  The  real  Minnie  Rifle  has  a  killing  range 
almost  equal  to  Cannon  and  of  course  is  more  easily  handled,  per 
haps  enough  so  to  make  up  the  difference.  Now  we  want  you  to 
get  for  us  these  arms.  We  need  them  more  than  we  do  bread.  Would 
not  Gerrit  Smith  or  someone,  furnish  the  money  and  loan  it  to  us 
for  one,  two  or  three  years,  for  the  purpose,  until  we  can  raise 
enough  to  refund  it  from  the  Free  soil  of  Kanzas?  ..." 

This  appeal  for  arms  John  Brown  could  not  have  resisted 
had  he  desired  to.  He  subsequently  recorded  that  on  the 
receipt  of  this  letter  he  was  "fully  resolved  to  proceed  at  once 
to  Kansas;  and  join  his  children."10  The  wish  to  " operate 
elsewhere"  had  disappeared  early  in  1855.  Indeed,  before  the 
second  detachment  of  his  sons  had  started,  he  had  begun  to 
arrange  his  affairs  so  that  he  too  might  emigrate.  On  February 
13  he  notified  John  W.  Cook,  of  Wolcottville,  Conn.,  of  his 
intentions: 

"Since  I  saw  you  I  have  undertaken  to  direct  the  opperations  of 
a  Surveying,  &  exploring  party,  to  be  employed  in  Kansas  for  a 
considerable  time  perhaps  for  some  Two  or  Three  years;  &  I  lack 
for  time  to  make  all  my  arrangements,  &  get  on  to  the  ground  in 


Labor  as  he  might,  he  was  not  able  to  dispose  of  his  cattle, 
wind  up  odds  and  ends  of  his  business  in  Illinois,  Ohio  and 
New  England,  collect  arms  for  his  sons,  take  leave  of  his 
family  at  North  Elba  and  start  for  the  West,  until  the  middle 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD         85 

of  August.  On  June  28  he  was  at  Syracuse,  attending  a  con 
vention  of  anti-slavery  men  who  called  themselves  Radical 
Political  Abolitionists.  Frederick  Douglass,  Gerrit  Smith, 
Lewis  Tappan  and  Samuel  J.  May  were  among  the  speakers, 
as  well  as  John  Brown,  and  the  convention  unanimously 
resolved  that  its  members  should  do  what  they  could  to 
prevent  the  return  of  fugitives.  There  was,  however,  con 
siderable  difference  of  opinion  in  consequence  of  the  proposal 
to  raise  money  for  John  Brown,  that  he  might  collect  arms 
for  his  sons.  Douglass,  of  course,  spoke  earnestly  in  Brown's 
behalf.  Others  were  unwilling  to  encourage  violence,  but,  as 
Douglass  afterwards  reported :  "The  collection  was  taken  up 
with  much  spirit,  nevertheless;  for  Capt.  Brown  was  present 
and  spoke  for  himself;  and  when  he  spoke  men  believed  in  the 
man."12  He  received  in  all  about  sixty  dollars  in  cash,  twenty 
dollars  being  from  Gerrit  Smith,  and  five  dollars  from  an  old 
British  Army  officer,  Charles  Stuart.  By  April  24  he  was  able 
to  ship  from  Springfield  to  Cleveland  a  box  of  firearms  and 
flasks,  which  he  subsequently  picked  up  in  Cleveland  on  his 
way  West.13 

Ex-Sheriff  S.  A.  Lane,  of  Akron,  testified,  in  an  interview 
printed  in  the  Akron  Beacon- Journal  of  February  i,  1898, 
that  during  his  visit  to  Akron,  on  his  way  West  in  August, 
Brown  held  open  meetings  in  one  of  the  public  halls  of  the 
village.  Because  of  their  interest  in  the  Kansas  crisis,  and 
in  the  Browns,  their  former  neighbors,  the  people  were  quickly 
roused  by  Brown's  graphic  words,  and  liberally  contributed 
arms  of  all  sorts,  ammunition  and  clothing.  Committees  of 
aid  were  appointed,  and  Lane  was  deputed  to  accompany 
Brown  in  a  canvass  of  the  village  shops  and  offices  for  contri 
butions.  Several  cases  of  guns  belonging  to  the  State  of  Ohio, 
then  being  collected  from  the  disbanded  militia  companies 
of  Akron  and  Tallmadge,  were  "spirited  away"  to  the  same 
end.  General  Lucius  V.  Bierce  later  testified  to  his  own  gift 
of  broadswords,  the  property  of  a  defunct  filibustering  com 
pany.  On  the  1 5th  of  August,  Brown  reported  to  those  remain 
ing  at  North  Elba  that  he  was  leaving  Cleveland  via  Hudson, 
and  would  have  been  off  before  had  he  not  met  with  such  suc 
cess  in  obtaining  "Guns  Revolvers,  Swords,  Powder,  Caps, 
&  money, "  that  he  thought  it  best  to  "detain  a  day  or  Two 


86  JOHN  BROWN 

longer  on  that  account."  He  had  raised  nearly  two  hundred 
dollars  in  that  way  in  the  two  previous  days,  principally 
in  arms  and  ammunition.14  But  the  harvest  being  gathered, 
he  and  his  son-in-law,  Henry  Thompson,  arrived  in  Chicago 
August  1 8,  after  stopping  at  Cleveland  and  Detroit,  where  they 
met  Oliver  Brown  and  at  once  prepared  for  the  overland  jour 
ney  by  buying  a  "nice  young  horse  for  which  we  paid  here 
$120,  but  have  so  much  load  that  we  shall  have  to  walk  a  good 
deal;  enough  probably,  to  give  opportunity  to  supply  our 
selves  with  game.  We  have  provided  the  most  of  what  we  need 
on  our  outward  march  "  —  so  Brown  wrote  to  his  "  Dear  Wife 
and  Children;  every  one"  on  August  23,  the  day  of  leaving 
Chicago,  with  solemn  injunctions  to  write  often  and  to  direct 
the  letters  to  Oliver,  since  Oliver's  name  was  "not  so  common 
as  either  Henry's  or  mine."15  The  heavily  loaded  one-horse 
wagon  was  in  obedience  to  advice  from  John  Brown,  Jr.,  who 
opined  that  his  father  would  find  it  just  what  he  wanted  in 
Kansas  to  carry  on  the  business  of  surveying.  Moreover,  this 
method  of  reaching  Osawatomie  was,  if  the  slowest,  the  best 
and  cheapest  way  of  travelling,  particularly  because  the 
navigation  of  the  Missouri  River  was,  as  the  son  put  it,  "a 
horrid  business  in  a  low  stage  of  water  which  is  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  year."16 

Not  that  roughing  it  could  discourage  John  Brown,  as  we 
know.  There  was  found,  after  his  capture  in  Virginia,  in  his 
papers,  the  beginnings  of  an  autobiographical  volume  en 
titled:  *  A  brief  history  of  John  Brown,  otherwise  (old  B)  and 
his  family:  as  connected  With  Kansas ;  By  one  who  knows.' 17 
This  was  composed  early  in  August,  1858,  for  on  the  9th 
of  that  month  he  wrote  to  his  son  John  from  Moneka,  Kansas, 
asking  that  certain  letters  and  other  material  be  sent  him 
for  this  book,  which,  had  it  been  completed,  would  have  been 
sold  for  "the  benefit  of  the  whole  of  my  family,  or  to  promote 
the  cause  of  Freedom  as  may  hereafter  appear  best  for  both 
objects."  *  18  In  this  all  too  brief  fragment,  written  in  the  third 
person,  appears  the  story  of  his  trip  to  Kansas,  including 

*  "I  am  certain,"  he  added,  "from  the  manner  in  which  I  have  been  pressed 
to  narrate,  and  the  greedy  swallowing  everywhere  of  what  I  have  told,  and  com 
plaints  in  the  newspapers  voluntarily  made  of  my  backwardness  to  gratify  the 
public,  that  the  book  would  find  a  ready  sale." 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD         87 

fresh  assurance  from  his  own  pen  that  "with  the  exposures, 
privations,  hardships,  and  wants,  of  pioneer  life  he  was 
familiar;  &  thought  he  could  benefit  his  Children  and  the 
new  beginners  from  the  older  parts  of  the  country  and  help 
them  to  shift." 

The  nice,  stout  young  horse  had  all  he  could  do,  so  Brown 
records,  to  drag  the  load  when  he  and  his  son  and  son-in-law 
left  Chicago  behind  them.  Hence,  continues  his  own  narra 
tive,  just  cited: 

"Their  progress  was  extremely  slow;  &  just  before  getting  into 
Missouri  their  horse  got  the  distemper:  after  ^ which  for ^  most  of 
the  journey  they  could  only  gain  some  Six  to  Eight  miles  in  a  day. 
This  however  gave  them  great  opportunity  for  seeing  &  hearing 
in  Missouri.  Companies  of  armed  men,  and  individuals  were  con 
stantly  passing  and  repassing  Kansaswise  continually  boasting  of 
what  deeds  of  patriotism ;  &  chivalry  they  had  performed  in  Kansas ; 
&  of  the  still  more  mighty  deeds  they  were  yet  to  do.  No  man  of 
them  would  blush  when  telling  of  their  cruel  treading  down  &  ter 
rifying  of  defenceless  Free  State  men ;  they  seemed  to  take  peculiar 
satisfaction  in  telling  of  the  fine  horses,  &  mules  they  had  many 
of  them  killed  in  their  numerous  expeditions  against  the  d — d 
Abolitionists.  The  coarse,  vulgar,  profane,  jests,  &  the  bloodthirsty 
brutual  feelings  to  which  they  were  giving  vent  continually  would 
have  been  a  most  exquisite  treat  to  Ears ;  and  their  general  appear 
ance  to  the  Eys  of  the  past  and  the  present  Administration.  Of 
this  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  or  of  the  similiarly  refined 
feeling  amongst  their  truly  Democratic  supporters  and  the  dough 
faces.  Witness  the  rewards  of  such  men  as  Clark  and  others. 

"  On  the  way  at  Waverly  Missouri  he  took  up  the  body  of  his  little 
grandson  who  had  died  of  cholera  .  .  .  thinking  it  would  afford 
some  relief  to  the  broken  hearted  Father  and  Mother  they  having 
been  obliged  to  leave  him  amidst  the  ruffian-like  people  by  whom 
(for  the  most  part)  they  were  themselves  so  inhumanly  treated  in 
their  distress.  The  parents  were  almost  frenzied  with  joy  on  being 
told  that  the  body  of  their  dear  child  was  again  with  them.  On  his 
arrival  at  the  place  where  his  sons  had  located  he  found  all  the  com 
pany  completely  prostrate  with  sickness  (Chill  fever,  and  Fever 
and  Ague)  except  the  wife  of  John  Jr  and  her  little  boy  of  some  three 
years  old.  The  strongest  of  all  the  five  men  scarcely  able  to  bring 
in  their  Cows,  cut  their  fuel,  bring  the  water,  and  grind  the  little 
corn  which  with  a  little  dried  fruit  they  had  left ;  a  very  few  Potatoes 
they  had  raised  and  a  small  supply  of  milk.  ..." 

One  picturesque  and  characteristic  incident  of  the  crossing 
of  the  enemy's  territory  John  Brown  himself  did  not  record, 


88  JOHN  BROWN 

since  fate  intervened  here  and  prevented  the  addition  of 
another  word  to  what  was  to  have  been  his  first  venture 
into  literature.  His  son-in-law,  Henry  Thompson,  relates  that 
when  they  reached  the  Missouri  River  at  Brunswick,  Missouri, 
they  set  themselves  down  to  await  the  ferry.  There  came  to 
them  an  old  man,  frankly  Missourian,  frankly  inquisitive  after 
the  manner  of  the  frontier.  "Where,"  said  he,  "are  you  go 
ing?"  "To  Kansas,"  replied  John  Brown.  "Where  from?" 
asked  the  old  man.  "  From  New  York,"  answered  John  Brown. 
"You  won't  live  to  get  there."  "We  are  prepared,"  said  John 
Brown,  "not  to  die  alone."  Before  that  spirit  and  that  eagle 
eye,  the  old  man  quailed ;  he  turned  and  left. 19 

It  was  on  October  6  that  the  advance  guard  of  the  car 
avan  reached  the  family  settlement  at  Osawatomie.  Brown 
himself,  being  very  tired,  did  not  cover  the  last  mile  or  two 
until  the  next  day.  They  arrived  in  an  all  but  destitute  con 
dition,  with  but  sixty  cents  between  them,  to  find  the  little 
family  settlement  in  great  distress,  not  only  because  of  the 
sickness  already  noted,  but  because  of  the  absence  of  any 
shelter  save  tents.  The  bitterly  cold  and  cutting  winds,  which 
did  much  to  disillusionize  so  many  of  the  emigrants,  kept 
the  Browns  shivering  over  their  little  fires,  and  the  exposure 
added  to  their  ill-health.  The  crops  that  had  been  raised  were 
not  cared  for;  there  was  no  meat,  little  sugar,  and  nothing 
to  make  bread  with,  save  corn  ground  by  great  labor  in  a 
hand  mill  two  miles  off.20  The  men,  enfeebled  by  the  chills 
and  ague  which  racked,  sooner  or  later,  all  the  new  arrivals 
in  Kansas,  had  lost  their  initiative  and  vigor,  and  needed  the 
resolute  sternness  of  the  head  of  the  family  to  stimulate  them 
to  new  efforts.  By  postponing  the  building  of  cabins,  they 
had  been  able  to  devote  themselves  to  the  crops;  and  the 
abundance  of  excellent  corn,  potatoes,  pumpkins,  squashes, 
melons,  beans,  etc.,  which  had  earlier  constituted  their  fare, 
compensated  them  for  most  of  the  inconveniences  they  had 
been  compelled  to  put  up  with,  so  wrote  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr., 
to  her  mother-in-law  at  North  Elba.21 

But  the  time  had  more  than  arrived  when  they  should 
devote  themselves  to  home-building.  On  October  25  there 
was  the  "hardest  freezing"  John  Brown  had  ever  witnessed 
south  of  North  Elba  at  that  season  of  the  year,  as  he  reported 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD        89 

to  his  wife,  in  order  that  she  should  know,  "in  that  misera 
ble  Frosty  region"  of  North  Elba,  that  "those  here  are  not 
altogether  in  Paradise."  22  Indeed,  nobody  in  Kansas  that 
unusually  cold  winter  of  1855-56  knew  what  comforts  were. 
Had  there  been  no  political  anxieties  to  vex  them,  the  frightful 
hardships  of  pioneering  and  the  acclimating  sicknesses  would 
have  made  that  period  truly  dreadful  to  look  back  upon. 
While  the  Browns  paid  the  penalty  for  living  on  low  ground 
in  a  ravine  and  in  tents,  that  first  summer,  their  bitter  experi 
ence  was  yet  vastly  better  than  that  of  many  another  family. 
Starvation  and  death  looked  in  at  many  a  door  where  parents 
lay  helpless,  while  famished  children  crawled  the  unboarded 
floors  crying  for  food,  shrieking  with  fear  if  any  footstep 
approached,  lest  the  comer  be  a  Border  Ruffian  instead  of  a 
friend.  For  pure  misery  and  heart-breaking  suffering,  these 
pioneer  tales  of  Kansas  in  1855-58  are  not  surpassed  by  any 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  winning  of  the  West.* 

By  November  2,  Jason's  and  John's  "shanties"  were  well 
advanced;  by  the  23d,  their  father  reported  these  two  fam 
ilies  so  well  sheltered  that  they  would  not  suffer  any  more, 
and  that  he  had  made  some  progress  in  preparing  another 
house,  in  the  face  of  icy  rains  and  freezing  nights.  "Still," 
wrote  the  indomitable  directing  spirit,  "God  has  not  'for 
saken  us;'  &  we  get  'day  by  day  our  dayly  Bread;'  &  I  wish 
we  had  a  great  deal  more  gratitude  to  mingle  with  our  unde 
served  blessings."23  One  dread  that  had  worried  them  prior 
to  their  departure  from  home  proved  unnecessary.  "You 
recollect  we  used  to  talk  a  great  deal  about  the  Indians," 
wrote  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  "and  how  much  I  feared  them 

-  they  are  the  least  of  my  troubles  —  there  is  scarcely  a  day 
but  they  go  along  in  sight  of  us  in  droves  of  from  30  to  40, 
sometimes  more  and  sometimes  less,  and  frequently  four  or 
five  of  them  will  come  galloping  up  to  see  us;  they  have  always 
treated  us  perfectly  civil  and  I  believe  if  we  treat  them  the 

*  See,  for  instance,  Mrs.  M.  D.  Colt,  Went  to  Kansas,  Watertown,  New  York, 
1862;    Mrs.  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson's  Kansas,  its  Interior  and  Exterior  Life,  Bos 
ton,  1858;  Thaddeus  Hyatt's  MS.  Journal  of  Investigations  in  Kansas,  1856-57, 
Kansas  Historical  Society;  Six  Months  in  Kansas,  by  a  Lady  (Hannah  Anderson 
Ropes),  Boston,  1856;   '  Memoir  of  Samuel  Walker,'  in  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  6,  pp.  249-274;  Three  Years  on  the  Kansas  Border,  by  a  Clergy 
man  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  New  York,  1856. 


90  JOHN  BROWN 

same  they  will  do  us  no  harm."  24  Her  prophecy  was  a  correct 
one.  It  was  not  the  red  but  the  white  men  of  the  border  they 
had  to  fear.  Terrified  as  they  were  when  the  first  big  band 
of  Sacs  and  Foxes  in  war-paint  surrounded  their  tents,  whoop 
ing  and  yelling,  the  Browns  had  the  good  sense  to  ground  their 
arms,  and  the  Indians  did  likewise.  Thereafter  both  sides  were 
great  friends.  John,  Jr.,  went  often  to  visit  their  old  chief; 
once,  when,  in  the  following  summer,  the  Indians  came  to  call 
in  numbers,  they  were  "fought"  with  gifts  of  melons  and 
green  corn.  "That,"  says  Jason  Brown,  "  was  the  nicest  party 
I  ever  saw." 

John  Brown,  Jr.,  used  to  ask  the  old  chief  questions,  as: 
"Why  do  you  Sacs  and  Foxes  not  build  houses  and  barns  like 
the  Ottawas  and  Chippewas?  Why  do  you  not  have  schools 
and  churches  like  the  Delawares  and  Shawnees?  Why  do  you 
have  no  preachers  and  teachers?"  And  the  chief  replied  in  a 
staccato  which  summed  up  wonderfully  the  bitter,  century- 
long  frontier  experience  of  his  people:  "We  want  no  houses 
and  barns.  We  want  no  schools  and  churches.  We  want  no 
preachers  and  teachers.  We  bad  enough  now."  25 

The  men  really  to  be  feared  were  not  long  in  putting  in 
appearance.  A  few  days  after  the  arrival  of  the  Brown  ad 
vance  guard  in  April,  six  or  eight  heavily  armed  Missourians 
rode  up  and  inquired  if  any  stray  cattle  had  been  seen  in  that 
neighborhood.  On  receiving  a  prompt  negative,  in  the  ver 
nacular  of  the  border  they  inquired  how  the  newcomers  were 
"on  the  goose."  "We  are  Free  State,"  was  the  answer,  "and 
more  than  that,  we  are  Abolitionists."  The  visitors  rode  away 
at  once  and,  says  Jason  Brown,  "from  that  moment  we  were 
marked  for  destruction.  Before  we  had  been  in  the  Territory 
a  month,  we  found  we  had  to  go  armed  and  to  be  prepared 
to  defend  our  lives."  The  leader  of  that  band  of  Missourians 
might  not  have  been  allowed  to  ride  away,  had  the  outspoken 
Northerners  before  them  realized  the  sinister  part  the  Rev. 
Martin  White  was  to  play  in  their  lives,  —  if  they  could  have 
dreamed  that  he  was  to  shoot  down  one  of  their  number  in 
cold  blood  within  a  twelvemonth.26 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  Browns  were  aggressive 
from  the  beginning.  They  not  only  nailed  their  colors  to  the 
mast  and  let  all  who  would  behold  them,  but  they  gave  play 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD         91 

to  those  feelings  which,  as  Salmon  reported,  had  been  so  well 
worked  up  in  crossing  Missouri.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Jason, 
Frederick  and  Owen  eagerly  attended  Free  State  settlers* 
meetings,27  and  the  first-named  figured  soon  in  the  political 
history  of  the  Territory.  On  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  June 
25»  X855,  he  was  elected  a  vice-president  of  the  Free  State 
convention  which,  then  in  session  at  Lawrence,  solemnly 
urged  all  the  people  of  Kansas  to  throw  away  their  differences 
and  make  the  freedom  of  Kansas  the  sole  issue.  Its  mem 
bers  called  upon  Free  State  representatives  to  resign  from 
the  bogus  Shawnee  Legislature  chosen  by  Missouri  votes, 
declared  that  the  convention  did  not  feel  that  its  members 
should  obey  any  laws  of  the  Legislature's  exacting,  and  finally 
resolved,  with  a  spirit  that  must  have  gratified  every  Brown, 
"  That  in  reply  to  the  threats  of  war  so  frequently  made  in  our 
neighbor  state,  our  answer  is,  'WE  ARE  READY.' "  28  Natu 
rally,  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  participation  in  this  expression  of 
feeling  —  he  was  a  member  of  the  committee  on  resolutions 
—  did  not  improve  his  standing  with  his  Southern  neighbors, 
of  whom  a  good  many  were  soon  to  be  free  with  their  threats 
and  boasts  that  they  would  drive  off  every  Yankee.29  But 
this  did  not  deter  him  in  the  least  from  attending  the  radical 
Lawrence  gathering  of  August  15,  in  which,  according  to  the 
Herald  of  Freedom,  he  was  a  member  of  the  steering,  or  busi 
ness  committee,  nor  from  becoming  a  member  of  the  first 
Territorial  Executive  Committee,  an  outgrowth  of  the  Big 
Springs  convention  of  September  5.30 

When  the  fraudulent  Pawnee  Legislature  convened,  July 
2,  1855,  it  enacted,  true  to  its  lawless  inception,  a  code  of 
punishments  for  Free  State  men  that  must  always  rank  as 
one  of  the  foremost  monuments  of  legislative  tyranny  and 
malevolence  in  the  history  of  this  country.  Under  that  code 
no  one  conscientiously  opposed  to  slavery,  or  who  failed  to 
admit  the  right  of  everybody  to  hold  slaves,  could  serve  as  a 
juror;  and  the  right  to  hold  office  was  restricted  to  pro-slavery 
men.  Five  years  at  hard  labor  was  to  be  the  fate  of  any  one 
introducing  literature  calculated  to  make  a  slave  disorderly 
or  dangerous  or  disaffected.  Death  itself  was  the  penalty  for 
raising  a  rebellion  among  slaves  or  supplying  them  with 
literature  which  advised  them  to  rise  or  conspire  against  any 


92  JOHN  BROWN 

citizen.  The  mere  voicing  of  a  belief  that  slavery  was  illegal 
in  Kansas  was  made  a  grave  crime,  in  the  following  words: 

"Sec.  12:  If  any  free  person,  by  speaking  or  writing,  assert  or  main 
tain  that  persons  have  not  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  this  Territory, 
print,  publish,  write,  circulate,  or  cause  to  be  introduced  into  the 
Territory,  any  book,  paper,  magazine,  pamphlet  or  circular,  con 
taining  any  denial  of  the  right  of  persons  to  hold  slaves  in  this 
Territory,  such  persons  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  felony,  and  pun 
ished  by  imprisonment  at  hard  labor  for  a  term  of  not  less  than 
five  years."  3I 

This  clause  was  obviously  aimed  at  the  New  York  Tribune 
and  other  anti-slavery  journals,  and  was  meant  to  be  an 
effective  padlock  upon  free  speech.  General  J.  H.  String- 
fellow,  a  resident  of  Atchison  and  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
that  passed  this  gag-law,  boasted  that  it  and  other  legislation 
"will  be  enforced  to  the  very  letter."  32  This  challenge  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  promptly  accepted.  The  code  from  which  we 
have  quoted  became  operative  on  September  15,  1855.  What 
he  did  on  that  day,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  recorded  on  the  next  in 
a  letter  to  his  mother : 

"Yesterday  I  told  a  man  who  I  since  learn  has  a  slave  here  that 
no  man  had  a  right  to  hold  a  slave  in  Kansas,  that  I  called  on  him 
to  witness  that  I  had  broken  this  law  and  that  I  still  intended  to 
do  so  at  all  times  and  at  all  places,  and  further  that  if  any  officer 
should  attempt  to  arrest  me  for  a  violation  of  this  law  and  should 
put  his  vilainous  hands  on  me,  I  would  surely  kill  him  so  help  me 
God.  He  made  no  reply  but  rode  off.  —  Nothing  is  now  wanting 
but  an  attempt  to  enforce  this  Law  with  others  of  like  import,  which 
Gov.  Shannon  has  declared  he  will  do,  and  we  shall  have  war  here 
to  the  knife."33 

"  Perhaps,"  wrote  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  her  brother-in- 
law,  Watson,  then  at  North  Elba,  "we  shall  all  get  shot  for 
disobeying  their  beautiful  laws,  but  you  might  as  well  die  here 
in  a  good  cause  as  freeze  to  death  there."  34  The  belligerent 
attitude  of  the  men  of  her  party  might  well  have  given  her 
anxiety.  It  was  as  if  they  had  intended  from  the  first  to  make 
Osawatomie  the  storm  centre  of  southeastern  Kansas,  and 
to  bring  down  upon  them  the  special  attentions  of  the  most 
radical  men  on  the  other  side  of  the  border,  men  of  the  type 
of  General  Stringfellow,  a  brother  of  B.  F.  Stringfellow,  who 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD        93 

declared  on  August  28,  1855,  'm  his  newspaper,  the  Squatter 
Sovereign,  published  at  Atchison,  Kansas,  on  the  Missouri  line: 

"We  can  tell  the  impertinent  scoundrels  of  the  [New  York]  Tribune 
that  they  may  exhaust  an  ocean  of  ink,  their  Emigrant  Aid  Societies 
spend  their  millions  and  billions,  their  representatives  in  Congress 
spout  their  heretical  theories  till  doomsday,  and  his  excellency 
Franklin  Pierce  appoint  abolitionist  after  free-soiler  as  governor, 
yet  we  will  continue  to  tar  and  feather,  drown,  lynch  and  hang 
every  white-livered  abolitionist  who  dares  to  pollute  our  soil."35 

With  those  and  other  threats  ringing  in  their  ears,  the  sons 
of  John  Brown  unloaded  the  arms  donated  by  friends  of  free 
Kansas  in  the  East  and  hauled  by  that  stout  young  horse 
across  Illinois  and  Missouri,  while  John  Brown  himself  sur 
veyed  the  settlement  of  Osawatomie,  whose  name  was  hence 
forth  to  be  linked  with  his  and  thus  obtain  an  imperishable 
place  in  American  history,  although  his  own  stay  in  the  simple 
frontier  settlement  was  to  be  brief  indeed,  —  not  eleven 
months  in  all. 

To  Kansas  John  Brown  came  with  no  thought  of  settlings- 
Surveying  was  to  give  him  a  livelihood  while  he  remained, 
but  he  came  to  fight,  prepared  to  battle  along  that  Kansas- 
Missouri  line  for  two  or  three  years,  by  which  time  he  felt 
the  victory  should  be  won,  and  he  be  free  to  assail  slavery  at 
another  point.36  The  Kansas  country  delighted  him.  Indeed^ 
he  told  his  children  that,  if  a  younger  man,  he  would  certainly 
stay  with  them,  but  that  so  long  as  he  had  a  good  farm  at 
North  Elba,  he  felt  that  by  common  industry  he  could  main 
tain  his  wife  and  daughters  there  while  his  sons  settled  where 
fancy  led  them.37  He  went  so  far,  on  his  arrival,  as  to  think 
of  taking  a  claim  near  his  sons'  settlement,  but  the  battles 
and  tragedies  of  the  immediate  future  prevented  his  consider 
ing  the  matter  further.38  In  March,  1859,  he  wrote  to  John 
Teesdale  that  "it  has  been  my  deliberate  judgment  since  1855 
that  the  most  ready  and  effectual  way  to  retrieve  Kansas 
would  be  to  meddle  directly  with  the  peculiar  institution." 
He  arrived  ready  to  grapple  with  it,  to  meet  violence  with 
violence,  to  do  to  the  Border  Ruffians  what  they  were  doing 
to  Free  Soilers.  To  accomplish  this,  he  was  ready  to  take  from 
the  pro-slavery  men  their  chattels,  whether  living  or  immo 
bile,  and  even  their  lives. 


94  JOHN  BROWN 

Until  well  into  the  spring  of  1855  the  drift  of  affairs  in 
Kansas  had  been  wholly  against  the  Free  Soilers,  despite  the 
emigration  from  New  England.39  Bona  fide  Missouri  settlers 
were  naturally  first  in  the  field,  by  reason  of  their  proximity 
to  the  newly  opened  lands,  and  were  quicker  in  organizing, 
under  the  leadership  of  Atchison  and  of  the  Stringfellow 
brothers  and  their  allies.  They  were  on  hand  at  the  first  elec 
tion  held  in  the  Territory,  November  29,  1854,  for  a  delegate 
to  Congress,  and  to  their  aid  came  hundreds  of  residents  of 
Missouri,  on  horseback  and  in  wagons,  with  guns,  bowie- 
knives,  revolvers  and  plenty  of  whiskey.  Encamping  near  the 
polling  places,40  on  election  day,  these  visitors  cast  1729  fraud 
ulent  votes41  to  the  satisfaction  of  their  leaders,  thus  electing 
the  pro-slavery  candidate,  General  J.  W.  Whitfield.  Atchi 
son,  on  November  6,  had  pointed  out  in  a  speech  at  Weston, 
Missouri,  how  easily  the  trick  could  be  turned:  "When  you 
reside  in  one  day's  journey  of  the  Territory,  and  when  your 
peace,  your  quiet  and  your  property  depend  upon  your  action, 
you  can  without  an  exertion  send  five  hundred  of  your  young 
men  who  will  vote  in  favor  of  your  institutions.  Should  each 
county  in  the  State  of  Missouri  only  do  its  duty,  the  question 
will  be  decided  quietly  and  peaceably  at  the  ballot-box.  If  we 
are  defeated,  then  Missouri  and  the  other  Southern  States 
will  have  shown  themselves  recreant  to  their  interests  and 
will  deserve  their  fate."42  As  it  happened,  "some  of  the  lead 
ing  men  of  Missouri,  comprising  merchants,  doctors  and  law 
yers,  were  recognized  among  the  ballot-box  stuff ers."  Judges, 
too,  were  there,  and  the  city  attorney  of  St.  Joseph.  There 
was  nothing  concealed  about  the  transaction.  The  coming 
of  the  Missourians  was  foretold  by  Free  Soil  correspond 
ents.43  When  the  visitors  had  closed  the  polls,  they  gayly 
shouted,  "All  aboard  for  Kansas  City  and  Westport,"  and 
drove  or  rode  away.44  In  one  district,  the  seventh,  seventy- 
five  miles  from  the  Missouri  line,  —  which  had  three  months 
afterward  only  53  voters  according  to  the  official  census,  - 
there  were  cast  604  votes.  The  Howard  Committee*  reported 
that  fully  584  of  these  were  illegal.45 

*  Authorized  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  19,  1856,  to  investigate 
the  Kansas  situation.  It  consisted  of  William  A.  Howard,  of  Michigan,  John 
Sherman,  of  Ohio,  and  Mordecai  Oliver,  of  Missouri. 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD        95 

This  invasion,  curiously  enough,  was  quite  unnecessary 
to  carry  the  day  for  Missouri,  for  the  Free  Soilers  were  then 
in  a  numerical  minority  to  the  bona  fide  Missouri  settlers,  as 
also  when  the  official  census  was  taken  three  months  later, 
in  February,  i855.46  Indeed,  for  fully  eight  months  after  the 
opening  of  the  Territory  on  July  I,  1854,  the  Missourians 
bade  fair  to  overrun  Kansas.  Moreover,  at  the  time  of  the 
election,  the  Free  Soilers  were  divided  in  their  counsels,  with 
out  recognized  leaders  or  a  definite  policy,  and  took  little  inter 
est  in  the  voting,  not  one-half  of  them  going  to  the  polls.47  But 
the  appetite  for  illegal  interference  in  a  sister  State  grew  with 
its  indulgence.  The  victory  of  November  29  was  proclaimed 
as  a  great  and  lasting  triumph  for  the  slavery  forces.  The 
Kansas  Herald  of  Leavenworth  announced  that  "the  triumph 
of  the  pro-slavery  party  is  complete  and  overwhelming,  .  .  . 
Kansas  is  saved,"48  and  its  jubilation  was  echoed  throughout 
Missouri.  The  St.  Louis  Pilot  rejoiced  "at  this  decisive  result, 
—  as  well  on  account  of  the  success  of  General  Whitfield, 
as  that  it  will  tend  to  quiet  the  fear  and  anxiety  pervading 
the  Western  frontier,  that  this  State  would  be  flanked  on  the 
west  with  an  unprincipled  set  of  fanatics  and  negro-thieves, 
imported  expressly  to  create  annoyance,  and  disturb  the  social 
relations  of  the  people  of  the  frontier  counties."  49  The  friends 
of  liberty  in  the  East  were  correspondingly  depressed.  "We 
believe  that  there  are  at  this  hour  four  chances  that  Kansas 
will  be  a  Slave  State  to  one  that  she  will  be  Free,"  wrote  Hor 
ace  Greeley  in  the  Tribune  of  December  7.  In  Washington  it 
was  generally  thought  that  the  South  had  possessed  itself  of 
Kansas,50  even  though  the  February,  1855,  census  showed  that 
only  192  slaves  had  been  taken  into  the  Territory,  in  which 
there  were  also  151  free  negroes.  "Some  of  the  Southern  men 
coolly  say  they  have  taken  Kansas  so  easily  that  they  think 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  take  Nebraska  also,"  reported 
Greeley 's  Washington  correspondent  on  February  13,  1855. 

Naturally,  in  the  East  the  November  invasion  was  used  by 
the  Tribune  and  other  backers  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Societies 
to  stimulate  recruiting  for  the  Kansas  holy  war.51  On  the 
other  hand,  the  arrival  of  bands  of  New  Englanders  sent  out 
by  the  Emigrant  Aid  Societies,  the  first  of  which  reached  Law 
rence  August  I,  i854,52  had  intensely  inflamed  the  Missouri- 


96  'JOHN  BROWN 

ans,  and  continued  to  do  so  for  the  next  two  years.  "  Shall 
we  allow  such  cut-throats  and  murderers,  as  the  people  of 
Massachusetts  are,  to  settle  in  the  territory  adjoining  our  own 
state?"  asked  the  Liberty  Platform,  a  Missouri  border  news 
paper,  in  June,  1854;  and  it  answered  its  own  question  thus: 
"No!  If  popular  opinion  will  not  keep  them  back,  we  should 
see  what  virtue  there  is  in  the  force  of  arms."  53  In  August, 
on  hearing  of  the  arrival  of  the  first  Emigrant  Aid  party,  the 
Platte  County  Argus  declared  that:  "It  is  now  time  to  sound 
the  alarm.  We  know  we  speak  the  sentiments  of  some  of  the 
most  distinguished  statesmen  of  Missouri  when  we  advise  that 
counter-organizations  be  made  both  in  Kansas  and  Missouri 
to  thwart  the  reckless  course  of  the  Abolitionists.  We  must 
meet  them  at  their  own  threshold  and  scourge  them  back 
to  their  covers  of  darkness.  They  have  made  the  issue,  and 
it  is  for  us  to  meet  and  repel  them."  54  To  the  Missourians 
in  1854  and  later,  their  fellow  countrymen  from  the  historic 
Bay  State  appeared  the  scum  of  Northern  cities,  hired  to  vote, 
and  not  intending  to  settle  Kansas  in  a  normal  way;  "the 
lowest  class  of  rowdies;"  "the  most  unmitigated  looking  set 
of  blackguards;"  "hellish  emigrants  and  paupers  whose 
bellies  are  filled  with  beggars'  food;"  men  of  "black  and 
poisonous  hearts,"55  —  thus  had  one  section  of  Americans 
been  set  against  their  brothers  by  the  divine  institution  of 
slavery.  "Riff-raff,"  "scoundrels"  and  "criminals"  were 
mild  adjectives  applied  to  Eastern  settlers,  in  whose  eyes  the 
Border  Ruffians  were  an  equally  low  and  degraded  set  of 
beings,  drunken  bandits  "armed  to  the  teeth"  and  revelling 
in  cruelty,  —  in  brief,  fiends  incarnate.  "Rough,  coarse, 
sneering,  swaggering,  dare-devil  looking  rascals  as  ever  swung 
upon  a  gallows,"  was  the  way  Dr.  J.  V.  C.  Smith,  of  Boston, 
characterized  them.56 

"Reader,"  asked  William  A.  Phillips,  the  Kansas  corre 
spondent  of  the  Tribune,  "did  you  ever  see  a  Border  Ruffian? 
.  .  .  Imagine  a  fellow,  tall,  slim,  but  athletic,  with  yellow 
complexion,  hairy-faced,  with  a  dirty  flannel  shirt,  or  red 
or  blue,  or  green,  a  pair  of  common-place,  but  dark-colored 
pants,  tucked  into  an  uncertain  altitude  by  a  leather  belt,  in 
which  a  dirty-handled  bowie-knife  is  stuck  rather  ostenta 
tiously,  an  eye  slightly  whiskey-red,  and  teeth  the  color  of  a 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD        97 

walnut.  Such  is  your  Border  Ruffian  of  the  lowest  type." 
"In  a  representation,"  he  added,  "of  the  'Forty  Thieves/ 
they  would  have  been  invaluable,  with  their  grim  visages, 
their  tipsy  expression,  and,  above  all,  their  oaths  and  unap 
proachable  swagger."  57  To  Thomas  H.  Gladstone,  a  relative 
of  the  great  statesman  of  that  name,  the  Border  Ruffians 
seemed  to  be  "wearing  the  most  savage  looks  and  giving 
utterance  to  the  most  horrible  imprecations  and  blasphemies. 
.  .  .  Looking  around  at  these  groups  of  drunken,  bellowing, 
blood-thirsty  demons,  who  crowded  around  the  bar  of  the 
house  shouting  for  drink,  or  vented  their  furious  noise  on  the 
levee  without,  I  felt  that  all  my  former  experiences  of  border 
men  and  Missourians  bore  faint  comparison  with  the  spec 
tacle  presented  by  the  wretched  crew,  who  appeared  only  the 
more  terrifying  from  the  darkness  of  the  surrounding  night." 
This  of  the  men  he  met  in  Kansas  City  after  they  returned 
from  the  sacking  of  Lawrence  in  1856.  The  earlier  invaders 
of  Kansas  Mrs.  Charles  Robinson  described  as  "rough,  bru 
tal-looking  men,  of  most  nondescript  appearance;"  "bands  of 
whiskey-drinking,  degraded,  foul-mouthed  marauders."59 

Undoubtedly  their  ranks  did  include  the  scum  of  the  bor 
der;  that  was  inevitable.  But,  aside  from  their  desire  to  foster 
slavery  in  Kansas,  they  had  been  easily  convinced  by  their 
leaders  that  the  coming  by  droves  of  New  England  Yankees 
actually  menaced  their  homes,  their  wives  and  children,  their 
property,  human  or  otherwise.  As  soon  as  Kansas  was  sub 
merged  by  the  incoming  tide  of  Abolition,  the  anti-slavery 
attack  was  to  be  directed  against  Missouri  and  Texas,  and 
then  the  fall  of  slavery  would  be  certain.  Senator  Atchison, 
in  his  speech  at  Weston  which  has  already  been  cited,  de 
clared  that  "if  we  cannot  do  this  [take  Kansas],  it  is  an  omen 
that  the  institution  of  Slavery  is  to  fail  in  this  and  the  other 
Southern  States."  As  late  as  July,  1856,  the  Charleston,  S.  C., 
Courier  affirmed  that:  "Now,  upon  the  proposition  that  the 
safety  of  the  institution  of  Slavery  in  South  Carolina  is  de 
pendent  upon  its  establishment  in  Kansas,  there  can  be  no 
rational  doubt."  "The  touchstone  of  our  political  existence 
is  Kansas — that  is  the  question,"  wrote  the  Washington  cor 
respondent  of  the  Charleston  Mercury,  January  5,  1856,  six 
months  earlier.60  For  what  other  purpose  could  the  Yankees 


98  JOHN  BROWN 

be  carrying  arms,  was  asked  after  the  election  in  1855,  when 
Charles  Robinson  succeeded,  through  his  agent,  George  W. 
Deitzler,  in  obtaining  Sharp's  rifles  from  the  officers  of  the 
Emigrant  Aid  Society  in  Boston,  they  being  shipped  to  him 
labelled  "Revised  Statutes"  and  "Books."61 

Elated  as  they  were  by  their  triumph  at  the  polls  in  the  first 
election,  the  Missourians  were  disposed  to  take  no  chances  of 
defeat  when  the  second  one  took  place.  This  was  called  by 
the  first  Territorial  Governor,  Andrew  H.  Reeder,  for  March 
30,  i855,62  and  in  preparing  for  it  the  Missouri  pro-slavery 
men  displayed  that  talent  for  rapid  military  organization 
which  was  so  evident  in  the  South  in  1861.  Since  this  elec 
tion  was  for  the  choice  of  the  first  Territorial  Legislature,  its 
importance  was  far  greater  than  the  mere  selection  of  a  dele 
gate  to  Congress.  Both  sides  felt  that  whoever  chose  the  Legis 
lature  settled  the  destiny  both  of  the  Territory  and  of  the 
future  State  of  Kansas  as  well.  No  one  could  accuse  the  Free 
Soilers  of  lacking  interest  this  time.  But  they  were  still  too 
young  upon  the  soil,  and  had  not  suffered  enough  indigni 
ties,  to  make  them  united  for  a  common  cause.  Moreover, 
the  winter  of  1854-55  had  been  not  only  unusually  mild,  but 
politically  quiet  as  well.63  Hence  the  Missourians  again  car 
ried  everything  before  them  when  they  invaded  Kansas  for 
the  second  time  to  deny  to  its  citizens  of  Northern  and 
Eastern  origin  the  votes  to  which  they  were  rightfully  enti 
tled.  They  came  by  companies,  each  assigned  to  its  special 
field  of  activity,  and  overawed  every  election  district  save 
one.64  One  thousand  men  devoted  their  attention  to  Lawrence 
as  the  home  of  the  most  Abolitionists.65  Some  of  these  had 
belonged  to  the  then  disbanded  Platte  County,  Missouri, 
"Self- Defensive  Association,"  which  by  formal  vote  of  its 
members  was  pledged  to  "bring  to  immediate  punishment 
all  Abolitionists,"  and  to  remove  from  Kansas  Territory  on 
demand  of  any  citizen  of  that  Territory,  "any  and  all  emi 
grants  who  go  there  under  the  auspices  of  the  Northern  Emi 
grant  Associations." 66  The  Blue  Lodges,  similar  organizations 
for  the  protection  of  Missouri  by  making  Kansas  impossible 
to  all  save  emigrants  from  the  South,  were  well  in  evidence. 
Each  wagon  of  the  raiders  bore  the  designation  of  an  order 
or  lodge.67  What  happened  on  March  30  was  merely  a  repe- 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD        99 

tition  of  November  29  on  a  larger  and  bolder  and  more  flagrant 
scale.  The  violations  of  law  and  order,  the  stuffing  of  the 
ballot-boxes,  the  terrorizing  of  the  Free  Soilers,  the  expelling 
of  Northern  election  officials,  —  in  brief,  the  subversion  of  the 
most  precious  of  our  free  institutions  was  complete.  The 
sacredness  of  the  ballot  was  nowhere  respected.  Of  the  6307 
votes  cast,  nearly  five-sixths  were  those  of  the  invaders.68 
The  thirty-nine  men  who  were  elected  were  all  representatives 
of  the  South,  with  one  exception.  Seven  of  the  pro-slavery  men 
Governor  Reeder  unseated,  not  because  of  the  frauds,  but  be 
cause  of  technical  flaws  in  their  election.  He  later  explained 
his  not  declaring  more  seats  vacant,  although  he  knew  that 
the  whole  election  was  a  fraud,  by  stating  that  no  other  com 
plaints  had  been  filed,  and  that  he  thus  lacked  official  infor 
mation,  —  a  valid  technical  excuse.  Complaints  were  not 
readily  made  because  the  Missourians  threatened  with  death 
any  who  might  venture  to  file  them.  Indeed,  the  Governor 
deserves  some  credit  for  unseating  those  legislators  he  did. 
He  rendered  his  decision  in  a  room  crowded  by  fourteen  of 
his  friends,  all  armed,  and  by  the  thirty-nine  successful  can 
didates,  veritable  walking  arsenals!69  But  no  shooting  oc 
curred.  The  Missourians  were  well  content  with  the  dis 
qualification  of  only  seven  of  their  number.  Subsequently, 
they  summarily  ousted  the  seven  Free  Soilers  legally  elected 
to  fill  these  vacancies,  and  the  remaining  Free  Soil  member 
promptly  resigned.70  The  Legislature  was  thus  pro-slavery 
throughout. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  this  high-handed  outrage, 
which  fairly  set  the  North  aflame  with  indignation,  went 
without  reprobation  from  the  soberer  elements  in  Missouri. 
The  exultant  Stringfellows  and  Atchisons  represented  the 
blood  and  thunder  pro-slavery ites;  but  there  were  other 
voices.  To  their  credit  be  it  recorded  that  the  Parkville 
Luminary,  Boonville  Observer,  Independence  Messenger,  Jef 
ferson  City  Inquirer,  Missouri  Democrat,  St.  Louis  Intelli 
gencer,  Columbia  Statesman,  Western  Reporter,  Glasgow  Times, 
Fulton  Telegraph,  Paris  Mercury  and  Hannibal  Messenger 
spoke  out  bravely  against  the  invasion  of  Kansas  by  mobs  and 
the  frauds  at  the  polls.71  For  its  conscientious  scruples  the 
Parkville  Luminary  promptly  met  an  unmerited  fate.  It  was 


ioo  JOHN  BROWN 

completely  destroyed  on  April  14,  its  plant  being  thrown  into 
the  river  and  its  editors  warned  that,  if  found  in  town  three 
weeks  later,  they  would  follow  their  type  into  the  Missouri. 
If  they  moved  to  Kansas,  the  mob  assured  them,  they  would 
be  followed  and  hanged  wherever  found.72  If  a  citizens'  meet 
ing  at  Webster,  Missouri,  highly  approved  of  this  action  and 
asserted  that  they  had  "no  arguments  against  abolition  papers 
but  Missouri  River,  bonfire  and  hemp  rope,"  73  there  were 
plenty  of  more  conservative  citizens.  Unfortunately,  they 
remained  in  the  minority;  but  to  them  appealed  the  argument 
that  if  the  entire  border  population  of  Missouri  were  to  move 
into  Kansas,  the  injury  to  Missouri's  progress  and  prosperity 
would  be  great.  They  felt,  all  the  more  as  they  were  attached 
to  their  own  homes,  that  upon  the  States  farther  South  rested 
the  duty  of  colonizing  Kansas.74 

The  first  Territorial  Legislature,  which  so  thoroughly  mis 
represented  Kansas,  met  at  Pawnee  on  July  2.  After  un 
seating  the  Free  Soil  delegates  and  organizing,  it  adjourned 
to  meet  again  at  Shawnee  on  July  16.  This  change  of  location 
gave  Governor  Reeder  the  opportunity  which  he  had  been 
seeking.  He  had  vetoed  the  removal  bill,  only  to  have  it 
passed  over  his  veto.75  He  then  declared  that  the  Legislature 
was  no  longer  a  legal  body.  In  this  contention  he  was  not 
upheld  by  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Territory,  S.  D.  Lecompte, 
the  Associate  Justice,  Rush  Elmore,  and  the  United  States 
District  Attorney,  A.  J.  Isacks,76  and  the  Legislature  there 
after  went  its  own  way  and  had  little  to  do  with  the  Execu 
tive.  It  did,  however,  petition  President  Pierce  for  Reeder's 
removal.  Its  messenger  learned  on  his  way  that  Reeder  had 
been  dismissed  from  office  on  July  28,  ostensibly  not  because 
of  the  quarrel  with  the  Legislature,  but  because  of  his  specu 
lations  in  Indian  lands  near  Pawnee.77  The  underlying  reason 
was,  none  the  less,  the  pro-slavery  party's  hatred  of  him.78 
As  for  his  land  speculations,  he  openly  stated  to  the  Howard 
Committee  the  circumstances  connected  therewith,  and  they 
have  not  been  held  to  reflect  on  his  character.73  Governor 
Reeder  at  once  became  a  valuable  leader  of  the  Kansas  Free 
Soilers,  being  thus  forcibly  converted  into  an  Abolitionist  from 
a  sympathizer  with  the  Squatter  Sovereignty  policy,  and  was 
regarded  in  the  East  as  a  martyr  to  the  Abolition  cause, 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD       101 

particularly  after  he  was  compelled  to  flee  from  Kansas  in 
disguise,  in  May,  1856,  never  to  return  to  that  State.  As  for 
the  Legislature,  it  spent  July  and  August  in  authorizing  a 
militia,  appointing  a  full  staff  of  pro-slavery  military  and  civil 
officers,  in  establishing  a  complete  code  of  laws  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  Territory,  based  on  the  Missouri  code,  and 
in  passing  those  extreme  Black  Laws  which  John  Brown,  Jr., 
was  so  quick  to  violate.  On  the  last  day  of  its  session,  the 
Speaker,  General  J.  H.  Stringfellow,  offered  a  characteristic 
resolution,  which  was  readily  adopted:  "It  is  the  duty  of  the 
Proslavery  Party,  the  Union  men  of  Kansas  Territory,  to 
know  but  one  issue,  Slavery;  and  that  any  party  making  or 
attempting  to  make  any  other,  is,  and  should  be,  held,  as  an 
ally  of  abolitionism  and  disunion."80  For  all  this,  no  genuine 
attempt  was  made  to  enforce  the  Black  Laws ;  they  were  dead 
letters  from  the  time  of  enactment.  If  they  were  intended  to 
frighten  off  further  emigration  from  free  States,  they  failed 
miserably ;  if  they  were  intended  to  terrorize  those  already  in 
the  Territory,  they  were  an  even  more  dismal  failure.  On  the 
other  hand,  reprinted  in  pamphlet  form  and  widely  circulated 
throughout  the  North  and  East,  the  Black  Laws  added  fuel 
to  the  already  intense  flame  of  Northern  indignation,  and 
became  an  unanswerable  demonstration  of  the  intolerance 
of  the  pro-slavery  domination  of  Kansas  and  the  lengths  to 
which  it  would  go. 

The  Free  State  men,  especially  those  in  Lawrence,  among 
whom  Charles  Robinson,  the  agent  of  the  New  England  Emi 
gration  Society,  and  Martin  F.  Conway  were  beginning  to 
stand  out  as  leaders,  as  soon  as  they  could  calmly  consider 
the  situation,  decided  that  the  bogus  Legislature  and  its  laws 
must  be  repudiated.81  It  soon  became  their  policy  to  call  a 
Constitutional  convention,  frame  a  Constitution  and  then 
apply  to  Congress  for  admittance  as  a  free  State.  As  has 
already  been  pointed  out,  they  were  not  united  among  them 
selves.  If  there  were  ardent  Abolitionists  among  them,  there 
were  also  many  who  were  unfriendly  to  the  free  negro,  even 
when  they  wished  slavery  excluded  from  the  Territory.  The 
men  who  had  settled  Kansas  represented  every  state  of  politi 
cal  belief,  for  the  magnet  of  free  land  was  all  that  had  drawn 
many  of  them  there.  In  the  summer  of  1855  they  might 


Of    THE 

(  UNIVERSITY   } 


102  JOHN  BROWN 

roughly  have  been  classed  as  moderates  and  radicals;  there 
existed,  too,  considerable  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  other 
emigrants  toward  those  New  Englanders  who  came  out  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Societies.82  The  first  of  six 
conventions  to  meet  in  Lawrence  on  or  before  August  15,  in 
order  to  repudiate  the  Legislature,  was  composed  of  citizens 
of  that  settlement.  It  assembled  June  8  and  decided  to  issue 
a  call  for  a  State  convention,  to  be  made  up  of  five  delegates 
from  each  of  the  eighteen  election  districts  in  Kansas.  This 
convention  was  to  have  as  its  purpose  the  taking  "into  con 
sideration  the  relation  the  people  of  this  Territory  bear  to  the 
Legislature  about  to  convene  at  Pawnee."83  It  was  to  this 
gathering  that  John  Brown,  Jr.,  came  on  June  25,  to  help 
to  draft  the  announcement  that  the  Free  State  men  answered 
"Ready"  to  the  threats  of  war  from  Missouri.  This  conven 
tion  further  resolved  that  it  was  in  favor  of  making  Kansas 
a  free  Territory  and  in  consequence  a  free  State.  Finally, 
since  the  Pawnee  Legislature  "owed  its  existence  to  a  com 
bined  system  of  fraud  and  force,"  the  members  of  the  conven 
tion  resolved  that  they  were  bound  by  no  laws  whatsoever 
of  its  creation.84 

Two  days  later,  June  27,  James  H.  Lane  made  his  first 
appearance  in  Kansas  history  as  chairman  of  the  abortive 
attempt  to  organize  the  National  Democratic  party  in  the 
Territory,  this  failure  soon  bringing  Lane  into  the  ranks  of 
the  Free  Soilers.  Unlike  all  the  other  conventions  of  this 
period,  it  in  no  wise  attempted  to  repudiate  the  Legislature.85 
The  next  gathering,  that  of  July  II,  was  attended  by  the 
expelled  Free  State  members  of  the  Legislature  and  other  citi 
zens.  In  it  the  conflict  of  opinion  between  radicals  and  mod 
erates  was  very  marked,  the  repudiation  of  the  Legislature 
and  the  call  for  a  mass  meeting  in  Lawrence  on  August  14, 
to  consider  the  government  of  the  Territory,  alone  being 
unanimous.86  The  August  14  convention,  in  which  Lane  par 
ticipated,  turned  out  to  be  ready  for  a  fairly  radical  stand. 
Dr.  Charles  Robinson  was  chairman  of  the  committee  on 
resolutions,  which  roundly  denounced  the  bogus  Legislature, 
repudiated  its  authority,  and  committed  the  Free  State  party 
to  the  forming  of  a  State  Constitution  of  their  own  with  a  view 
to  admission  to  the  Union,  but  provided  no  machinery  by 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD       103 

which  this  should  be  done.  If  the  resolutions  were  radical, 
the  net  result  was  conservative.  On  the  second  day  there  was 
also  adopted  a  call  for  a  convention  at  Big  Springs,  to  be  held 
on  September  5.  Delegates  to  it  were  to  be  appointed  at  a 
meeting  on  August  25,  and  the  purpose  of  these  gatherings 
was  to  be  left  largely  to  what  the  hour  might  demand. 

Curiously,  as  if  the  specific  relationship  and  purpose  of 
these  gatherings  were  not  puzzling  enough,  a  second  conven 
tion  also  met  in  Lawrence  on  August  15,  while  the  first  was 
still  in  session.  This  second  body  was  presided  over  by  Dr. 
A.  Hunting,  and  comprised  the  radicals  of  the  Free  State 
party,  some  of  whom,  like  Charles  Robinson  and  M.  F.  Con- 
way,  were  actually  members  of  both  conventions.  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  was  one  of  the  committee  on  "  business,"  which 
turned  out  to  be  a  call  for  a  constitutional  gathering  at  Topeka 
on  October  19,  for  the  "speedy  formation  of  a  State  consti 
tution,  with  an  intention  of  immediate  application  to  be 
admitted  as  a  State  into  the  Union  of  the  United  States  of 
America."  The  distinction  between  these  two  simultaneous 
conventions  of  August  15  may  be  stated  thus:  The  first  and 
larger  one,  of  six  hundred  members,  had  as  its  aim  the  organi 
zation  of  the  Free  State  political  party  by  means  of  the  Big 
Springs  convention ;  the  second  and  radical  one  looked  to  the 
immediate  establishment  of  a  Free  State  government,  to  be 
set  up  in  opposition  to  the  pro-slavery  Legislature  still  sitting 
at  the  Shawnee  Mission,  and  now  presided  over  by  the  second 
Territorial  Governor,  Wilson  Shannon,  of  Ohio,  —  a  Governor, 
in  truth,  to  please  the  most  violent  Border  Ruffian  or  pro- 
slavery  agitator.87 

Out  of  these  numerous  meetings  came  the  Big  Springs 
convention  on  September  5,  which  adopted  a  platform  — 
the  first  one  —  for  the  Free  State  party,  and  nominated  ex- 
Governor  Reeder  as  delegate  to  Congress.  The  platform  was 
a  great  disappointment  to  the  radical  Abolitionists  of  the 
John  Brown  type,  both  in  Kansas  and  New  England,  for 
while  it  resolved  that  slavery  was  a  curse  and  that  Kansas 
should  be  free,  it  announced  that  it  would  consent  "to  any 
fair  and  reasonable  provision  in  regard  to  the  slaves  already 
in  the  Territory."  More  than  that,  it  specifically  voted  that 
Kansas  should  be  a  free  white  State,  and  recorded  itself  as 


104  JOHN  BROWN 

being  in  favor  of  "stringent  laws  excluding  all  negroes,  bond 
and  free,  from  the  Territory."  Indeed,  as  if  to  answer  the 
Southern  charge  that  the  Free  Soil  citizens  of  Kansas  were 
radical,  no-union- with-slaveholders,  anti-slavery  men,  the 
convention  denounced  attempts  to  interfere  with  slavery  and 
slaves,  and  declared  "that  the  stale  and  ridiculous  charge  of 
Abolitionism  so  industriously  imputed  to  the  Free  State  party 
.  .  .  is  without  a  shadow  of  truth  to  support  it."88  It  is 
hardly  surprising  that  to  those  men  who,  like  the  Browns,  had 
come  to  Kansas  to  wage  war  with  slavery,  this  policy  of  com 
promise —  a  last  attempt  to  head  off  a  violent  conflict  be 
tween  the  two  forces  contending  for  control  of  the  Territory 
—should  have  smacked  of  the  cowardly.  Nor  did  the  vigorous 
denunciation  of  the  Shawnee  Legislature  in  the  resolutions 
passed  by  the  convention  mollify  men  of  this  type.  Charles 
Stearns,  the  only  Lawrence  representative  of  the  Liberator 
school  of  Abolitionists,  denounced  the  proceedings  with  the 
vigor  of  language  characteristic  of  that  school,  and  was  in  turn 
reprobated  as  an  impossible  Garrisonian  of  the  deepest  dye. 
"All  sterling  anti-slavery  men,  here  and  elsewhere,  cannot  keep 
from  spitting  upon  it  [the  platform],"  wrote  Stearns  to  the 
Kansas  Free  State  of  September  24,  1855,  "and  all  pro-slavery 
people  must,  in  their  hearts,  perfectly  despise  the  base  syco 
phants  who  originated  and  adopted  it." 89  In  the  East,  Horace 
Greeley  reluctantly  accepted  the  platform  in  the  following 
words:  "Why  free  blacks  should  be  excluded  it  is  difficult  to 
understand ;  but  if  Slavery  can  be  kept  out  by  a  compromise 
of  that  sort,  we  shall  not  complain.  An  error  of  this  character 
may  be  corrected;  but  let  Slavery  obtain  a  foothold  there 
and  it  is  not  so  easily  removed." 90 

Doubtless  when  Lawrence  was  threatened  with  destruc 
tion  less  than  three  months  later,  by  the  pro-slavery  forces 
encamped  on  the  Wakarusa  River,  Mr.  Stearns  cited  their 
presence  as  proof  that  the  Big  Springs  platform  had  utterly 
failed  to  mollify  the  hostile  Missourians  or  to  lessen  their  con 
tempt  for  the  Free  Soilers,  whom  they  still  despised  as  arrant 
cowards.  Certain  it  is  that  the  trend  of  events  speedily 
forced  the  Free  State  party  itself  into  an  entirely  different 
attitude  from  that  it  sought  to  maintain  at  Big  Springs.  The 
anti-negro  attitude  of  the  party  was,  however,  upheld  at  the 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD       105 

Topeka  convention,  which  met  at  Topeka  on  October  23  to 
form  a  Constitution  in  obedience  to  the  decision  of  the  earlier 
delegate  convention  of  September  19  (ordered  by  the  radical 
Lawrence  convention  of  August  15).  The  Topeka  Constitu 
tional  convention  of  thirty-four  members,  presided  over  by 
James  H.  Lane,  consisted  of  four  physicians,  twelve  lawyers, 
thirteen  farmers,  two  merchants,  two  clergymen  and  one 
saddler;  a  majority  favored  the  exclusion  of  free  negroes, 
but  finally  decided  to  submit  this  question  to  the  people.91 
By  1287  ballots  to  453,  the  voters  of  the  Territory  upheld 
the  negro  exclusion  policy  on  December  15,  and  made  it  clear 
to  the  rest  of  the  country  that,  if  slavery  in  Kansas  itself  was 
opposed  by  the  Free  Soil  party,  it  was  not  in  the  least  due  to 
any  liking  for  negroes,  or  any  desire  to  extend  to  those  who 
were  free  the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  opening  of  the 
Territory,  or  to  any  belief  that  the  continuance  of  human 
bondage  was  inconsistent  with  American  institutions.  Three- 
fourths  of  the  Free  State  settlers  were  in  favor  of  a  free  white 
State,  and  the  heaviest  voting  against  the  free  negro  was  in 
Lawrence  and  Topeka.92  Obviously,  those  who  had  come  to 
Kansas  with  the  purpose  of  opposing  the  extension  of  slavery 
were  in  a  small  minority,  just  as  the  scanty  slave  population 
shows  either  that  few  of  the  Missouri  settlers  came  solely  for 
slavery's  sake,  or  else  that,  if  they  had  such  a  purpose,  they 
feared  to  bring  their  slaves  with  them.93 

On  the  credit  side  of  the  record  of  the  Big  Springs  conven 
tion  must  be  noted  its  denunciation  of  the  bogus  pro-slavery 
Legislature,  its  demand  for  the  sacredness  of  the  "  great 
'American  Birthright'  —  the  elective  franchise,"  and  its 
endorsement  of  the  coming  Topeka  convention  to  consider 
the  adoption  of  a  Constitution.  There  was,  moreover,  a  se 
rious  threat  in  one  of  its  resolutions  that  there  would  be 
submission  to  the  Legislature's  laws  no  longer  than  the 
Territory's  best  interests  required,  when  there  would  follow 
opposition  "to  a  bloody  issue  as  soon  as  we  ascertain  that 
peaceable  remedies  shall  fail,  and  forcible  resistance  shall  fur 
nish  any  reasonable  measure  of  success." 94  All  of  this  threat 
ening  of  fire  and  slaughter  was  placed  not  in  the  platform, 
but  in  the  resolutions;  it  was  obviously  an  attempt  at  facing 
both  ways,  and  as  such  is  justified  by  men  who  subsequently 


106  JOHN  BROWN 

became  radical  antagonists  of  all  who  favored  slavery.*  The 
convention  also  ignored  the  Legislature's  action  in  appoint 
ing  October  i  as  the  day  for  the  election  of  a  Territorial  dele 
gate  to  the  Thirty-fourth  Congress,  and  fixed  upon  October  9 
as  the  proper  day  for  this  election ;  the  returns  from  this  vot 
ing  were  subsequently  ordered  turned  over  to  the  "  Territorial 
Executive  Committee,"  instead  of  to  the  Legislature.  This 
"Executive  Committee,"  also  a  creation  of  the  Big  Springs 
Convention,  and  the  first  Free  State  steering  committee 
appointed  by  a  delegate  convention  to  take  charge  of  Free 
State  affairs,  was  headed  by  Charles  Robinson  as  chairman, 
with  Joel  K.  Goodin  as  secretary,  and  had  among  its  twenty- 
one  other  members  Martin  F.  Conway  and  John  Brown,  Jr.95 
Finally,  it  was  at  this  Big  Springs  meeting  that  James  H. 
Lane  first  made  his  mark  as  a  Kansas  political  leader;  to  his 
eloquence  is  attributed  the  saving  of  the  convention  from 
a  dangerous  split,  in  that  he  brought  about  its  approval  of 
the  preliminary  Constitutional  convention  at  Topeka.96  As  to 
Lane's  attitude  on  the  negro,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  has  testified 
to  Lane's  saying  in  Lawrence,  about  this  time:  "So  far  as  the 
rights  of  property  are  concerned  I  know  no  difference  between 
the  negro  and  a  mule."97  Later,  however,  Lane  switched 
about  on  this  as  on  other  issues. 

The  two  elections  for  Territorial  delegate  took  place  as 
scheduled.  At  the  pro-slavery  one  on  October  I ,  General  J .  W. 
Whitfield,  who  had  represented  Kansas  in  the  national  Legis 
lature  during  the  three  months  of  the  Thirty-third  Congress 
remaining  after  his  election  on  November  30,  1854,  received 
2721  out  of  2738  votes  cast,  the  Free  State  men  abstaining 
from  the  polls.  The  Howard  Committee  pronounced  857  of 
these  votes  illegal  after  only  a  partial  examination  of  the 
returns.98  Eight  days  later,  with  conditions  reversed,  Reeder 
received  2849  Free  Soil  votes.99  His  election  was,  of  course, 
ignored  by  the  Territorial  Governor,  Shannon.  When  Reeder 
and  Whitfield  both  presented  themselves  at  Washington,  the 
latter  was  given  his  seat  on  February  4,  1856,  only  to  be  igno- 

*  For  instance,  R.  G.  Elliott,  who  played  an  important  part  in  the  Big  Springs 
Convention,  declares  that  it  faced  "an  important  condition  that  had  to  be  dealt 
with  practically  and  with  conciliatory  discrimination." — Kansas  Historical 
Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  373. 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD       107 

miniously  ousted  on  August  4, 10°  after  the  report  of  the  How 
ard  Committee  had  been  received  by  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives.*  The  House  could  not,  however,  then  bring  itself 
to  seating  Reeder.  But  his  appearance  at  Washington  and 
his  vigorous  urging  of  his  claims  were  the  reason  for  the 
appointment  of  the  Howard  Committee.  This  was  in  itself  a 
splendid  triumph  for  the  new  policy  of  the  Free  State  leaders 
and  their  plan  of  an  organized  political  demand  upon  Congress 
for  recognition.  Not  only  are  the  majority  and  minority 
reports  of  the  Howard  Committee,  with  their  voluminous 
sworn  testimony,  an  invaluable  record  for  the  historian  and 
the  best  source  of  information  as  to  the  period  in  Kansas 
history  covered  by  its  inquiry,  but  the  publication  of  the 
results  thereof  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the  country 
at  large,  at  a  critical  period  in  the  Territory's  history. 

From  the  double  election  for  delegates  in  October,  1855, 
dates  that  duality  in  the  political  life  of  the  strife-torn  Terri 
tory  which  lasted  for  two  years  thereafter,  and  adds  so  much 
to  the  perplexity  of  the  cursory  student  of  Kansas  history 
prior  to  its  statehood.  It  is  not  only  that  there  were  hence 
forth  two  governments,  but  that  they  were  supported  by 
factions  bitterly  hostile  even  to  the  extent  of  bloodshed. 
There  were  always  separate  elections  for  the  same  offices  at 
separate  places,  with  the  double  machinery  of  counting  and 
proclaiming  the  returns,  and  there  was  even  a  duality  of  man 
agement  on  the  Free  Soil  side.  The  supplemental  Topeka 
Constitutional  convention  met,  as  determined  by  the  prelim 
inary  one  of  September  19,  on  October  23,  and  remained 
in  session  until  November  n.  The  Constitution  it  adopted 
followed  closely  those  of  the  other  free  States,  providing 
that  there  should  be  no  slavery,  and  that  no  indenture  of 
any  negro  or  mulatto  made  elsewhere  should  be  valid  within 
the  State.  It  fixed  March  4,  1856,  as  the  day  for  the  meeting 
of  the  General  Assembly  called  for  by  the  document. 101  This 
was  submitted  to  the  people  on  December  15  and  ratified  by 
a  vote  of  1731  for,  to  46  against.  The  poll-books  at  Leaven- 
worth  having  been  destroyed  by  a  pro-slavery  mob,  its  vote  is 

*  The  Howard  Committee  reported  that  both  Whitfield's  and  Reeder's  elec 
tions  were  illegal,  but  that  Reeder  had  received  more  votes  of  resident  citizens 
than  Whitfield.  See  Howard  Report,  p.  67. 


io8  JOHN  BROWN 

not  recorded  in  the  above  total.102  Thereafter  the  Free  Soil 
forces  insisted  that  Kansas  was  an  organized  free  State,  when 
demanding  its  admission  into  the  Union.  The  convention, 
before  adjourning,  appointed  another  Free  State  Executive 
Committee,  with  the  same  secretary  as  had  the  Robinson 
Committee,  Joel  K.  Goodin,  but  with  Lane,  already  a  serious 
rival  of  Charles  Robinson,  as  its  chairman,  and  five  other 
members.  Lane,  therefore,  emerged  from  the  Topeka  con 
vention  with  additional  prestige  and  thoroughly  committed 
to  the  Free  State  policies. 

Out  of  all  the  meetings  and  conventions  of  the  nine  months 
after  the  stolen  March  30  election,  there  had  come,  then,  great 
gains  to  the  Free  State  movement.  The  liberty  party  had 
been  organized,  leaders  had  been  developed,  and  a  regular 
policy  of  resistance  by  legal  and  constitutional  measures 
adopted.  If  counsels  of  compromise  were  still  entirely  too 
apparent  and  too  potent,  the  train  of  events  which  resulted 
in  Kansas' s  admission  as  a  free  State  was  well  under  way. 
Not  unnaturally,  the  pro-slavery  leaders  at  first  regarded  this 
growing  opposition  with  amusement  or  contempt.  They  were 
still  convinced  in  October,  1855,  that  Kansas  was  theirs  by 
right  of  their  larger  battalions  and  by  right  of  conquest. 
Moreover,  Governor  Shannon,  with  all  his  authority,  was  on 
their  side,  and  behind  him  the  Federal  Government.  The 
adoption  of  the  Topeka  constitution  did,  however,  arouse 
their  anger;  to  this  their  answer  was  the  organization  in 
November  of  their  own  party,  which,  with  unconscious  irony, 
they  dubbed  the  " Law-and-Order  Party,"  at  a  meeting  over 
which  Governor  Shannon  presided. 103  Indeed,  as  their  hitherto 
triumphal  overriding  of  Kansas  began  to  meet  a  more  and 
more  compact  resistance,  their  mood  began  to  change.  The 
leaders  were  quick  to  feel  their  power  slipping  from  their 
hands,  particularly  when,  the  first  rush  from  Missouri  being 
over,  the  steady  stream  of  emigration  from  the  East  made  it 
evident  that  they  were  being  outnumbered.  Their  followers, 
also,  began  to  get  out  of  hand;  from  overawing  by  a  show 
of  force,  it  was  easy  to  proceed  to  actual  physical  violence 
in  the  hope  of  terrifying  the  hated  Free  Soiler  or  of  driving 
him  from  the  Territory.  The  temptation  to  crime  was  all 
the  greater  since  there  was  no  non-partisan  judicial  machin- 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD       109 

ery,  and  often  no  machinery  at  all  outside  of  the  Federal 
judiciary.104 

The  Howard  Committee  found  that,  of  all  the  crimes  testi 
fied  to  during  its  sessions,  an  indictment  had  been  found  in 
but  one  case.105  In  that,  the  man  charged  with  murder  was 
a  Free  Soiler,  Cole  McCrea  by  name,  who  had  killed  a  pro- 
slavery  man,  Malcolm  Clark,  at  Leavenworth,  on  April  30, 
1855,  in  a  quarrel  over  certain  trust  lands  and  McCrea's  right 
to  participate  in  and  vote  in  a  squatter's  meeting.  The  first 
of  the  long  series  of  homicides  which  was  to  make  of  the  Ter 
ritory  in  very  truth  a  "bleeding  Kansas,"  was  not  a  political 
one.  It  occurred  near  Lawrence  on  the  first  election  day, 
November  30,  1854,  Henry  Davis,  a  Border  Ruffian  from 
Kentucky,  being  killed  by  Lucius  Kibbey,  of  Iowa.  Davis,  in 
an  intoxicated  condition,  had  assailed  Kibbey  with  a  knife.106 
Such  an  election-day  crime  might  easily  have  occurred  any 
where.  The  killing  of  Clark, 107  in  the  following  spring,  be 
came,  on  the  other  hand,  of  marked  political  significance, 
because  of  the  treatment  of  his  slayer,  McCrea.  The  latter 
was  imprisoned  at  Leavenworth  until  late  in  November.  The 
injustice  of  his  case  lay  in  the  court's  denying  to  McCrea  his 
counsel,  James  H.  Lane,  because  the  latter  would  not  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  pro-slavery  Legislature,  and  in 
McCrea's  subsequent  treatment,  on  September  17,  when  he 
was  brought  before  the  grand  jury  of  nineteen  men  sum 
moned  by  Chief  Justice  Lecompte  and  picked  by  him.  Sixteen 
were  openly  selected  and  three  in  private;  one  of  the  nineteen 
had  been  engaged  with  Clark  in  the  attack  on  McCrea.  For 
a  whole  week  Justice  Lecompte  endeavored  to  induce  the  jury 
to  indict  McCrea,  but  in  vain;  the  evidence  was  too  strongly 
in  favor  of  McCrea  for  even  this  picked  jury  to  find  a  true 
bill  against  him.  As  the  foreman  refused  to  bring  in  a  verdict 
of  "not  found,"  Justice  Lecompte  adjourned  the  court  until 
the  second  Monday  of  November,  when  McCrea  was  finally 
indicted,  after  having  been  illegally  deprived  of  liberty  during 
the  intervening  period.  When,  in  November,  he  was  able  to 
make  his  escape  from  jail  and  leave  the  Territory  by  way  of 
Lawrence,  the  inability  of  its  citizens  to  offer  him  protection 
added  greatly  to  their  stress  of  mind.  The  whole  episode  of 
McCrea's  confinement  had  roused  the  indignation  of  the  Free 


no  JOHN  BROWN 

Sellers  everywhere,  convinced  as  they  were  that  McCrea 
had  shot  in  self-defence.108 

Even  more  stirring  to  the  friends  of  liberty  was  the  ill- 
treatment  of  William  Phillips,  an  active  Free  State  lawyer 
of  Leavenworth,  and  a  friend  of  Cole  McCrea's,  who  was 
present  when  Clark  was  killed.  Phillips  received  notice  on 
April  30,  from  the  pro-slavery  vigilance  committee  appointed 
on  that  date,  to  leave  the  Territory.  On  his  refusal  to  go  or 
to  sign  a  written  agreement  that  he  would  leave  Kansas,  a 
majority  of  the  committee,  so  one  of  its  members  testified, 
"voted  to  tar  and  feather  him.  The  committee  could  get  no 
tar  and  feathers  this  side  of  Rial  to ;  and  we  took  him  up  there 
and  feathered  him  a  little  above  Rialto,  Missouri."109  This 
witness  forgot  to  add  that  one  side  of  Phillips's  head  was 
shaved ;  that  after  his  clothes  were  stripped  from  him  and  the 
tar  applied,  he  was  ridden  on  a  rail  for  a  mile  and  a  half,  and 
then  sold  for  one  dollar  by  a  negro  auctioneer  at  the  behest 
of  his  tormentors.  A  public  meeting  at  Leavenworth  on  May 
19  heartily  endorsed  this  treatment  of  "William  Phillips,  the 
moral  perjurer."  no  The  next  day  the  Leavenworth  Herald 
said  of  the  mob's  work:  "The  joy,  exultation  and  glorification 
produced  by  it  in  our  community  are  unparalleled."  This  out 
rage  failed  to  daunt  Phillips's  courage ;  he  stayed  in  Kansas, 
only  to  die  later  at  the  hands  of  his  pro-slavery  enemies.  As 
John  Brown  was  leaving  Ohio  for  Kansas,  a  similar  experience 
befell  the  Rev.  Pardee  Butler  at  Atchison.  His  pro-slavery 
fellow  citizens,  on  August  16,  placed  him  on  a  raft  and  shipped 
him  down  the  Missouri,  throwing  stones  at  him  and  his 
queer  craft  as  the  current  bore  him  away.  His  forehead 
was  ornamented  with  the  letter  R ;  and  the  flags  on  his  raft 
bore  the  inscriptions,  "  Greeley  to  the  rescue,  I  have  a  nigger; " 
"Eastern  Aid  Express;"  and  "'Rev.  Mr.  Butler,'  agent  to 
the  Underground  Railroad."  m  The  Squatter  Sovereign,  the 
Stringfellow  newspaper,  notified  all  the  world  that  "the  same 
punishment  we  will  award  to  all  free-soilers,  abolitionists  and 
their  emissaries."  In  fact,  one  J.  W.  B.  Kelly  had  already 
encountered  the  hatred  of  the  pro-slavery  leaders,  for  in  the 
first  week  of  August  he  was  severely  thrashed  and  ordered 
out  of  town  for  holding  Abolition  views.112  Yet  Butler  re 
turned  to  Atchison,  as  Phillips  did  to  Leavenworth,  only  to 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  WAR  CLOUD       in 

meet  a  graver  fate.  Another  clergyman,  the  Rev.  William  C. 
Clark,  was  assaulted  on  a  Missouri  river  steamer  in  Septem 
ber,  for  avowing  Free  State  beliefs  that  seemed  to  his  assail 
ants  to  call  for  physical  punishment.113 

As  John  Brown  crossed  the  boundary  between  Missouri 
and  Kansas,  on  October  4,  these  outrages  were  still  agitating 
the  Territory  and  causing  men  everywhere  to  arm.  That  the 
pro-slavery  election  of  October  I  had  passed  off  peacefully, 
although  fraudulently,  had  reassured  no  one;  within  five  days 
the  Free  Soilers  were  to  hold  their  own  election  and  thus 
begin  a  Free  Kansas  governmental  structure.  Would  their 
lawless  Border  Ruffian  neighbors  permit  this  without  addi 
tional  bloodshed  and  violence?  Many  a  Free  Soil  settler  who 
had  found  his  way  into  Kansas  only  in  the  face  of  outspoken 
Missouri  hostility,  enduring  privation  if  not  starvation  on  the 
way,  because  of  his  being  a  Yankee,*  envied  the  little  Brown 
colony  their  rich  supply  of  arms  and  ammunition.  Upon 
John  Brown,  the  apostle  of  the  sword  of  Gideon,  and  his  mili 
tant  sons,  outspoken  in  their  defiance  of  slavery  and  its  laws, 
each  separate  crime  by  a  Missourian  made  a  deep  and  last 
ing  impression.  Without  loss  of  time  their  settlement  was  to 
become  known  on  both  sides  of  the  border  as  a  centre  of 
violent  resistance  to  all  who  wished  to  see  human  slavery 
introduced  into  the  Territory.  Indeed,  three  days  after  his 
arrival  at  his  destination,  October  9,  he  and  his  sons  went  to 
the  election  for  a  Free  State  delegate  "most  thoroughly  armed 
(except  Jason,  who  was  too  feeble)  but  no  enemy  appeared," 
so  John  Brown  wrote  his  wife  on  October  14,  adding,  "nor 
have  I  heard  of  any  disturbance  in  any  part  of  the  Terri 
tory."  114  The  spirit  of  the  Massachusetts  minute-men  was 
alive  in  Kansas. 

*  For  instance,  Samuel  Walker,  later  a  leading  citizen  of  Lawrence,  was  not 
allowed,  in  April  1855,  to  take  his  little  girl,  who  was  suffering  from  a  broken 
leg,  into  the  house  of  a  Baptist  minister  living  on  the  Missouri  border,  because 
he  came  from  the  North.  Not  until  he  reached  the  Shawnee  nation  could  he,  a 
Yankee,  get  shelter  at  night  for  his  injured  child;  food  was  obtained  only  at  night 
and  from  slaves.  —  Kansas  Historical  Collections,  vol.  6,  p.  253. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS 

FORTUNATELY,  the  Brown  minute-men  were  not  called  upon 
for  active  service  for  a  few  weeks  after  the  arrival  of  their 
arms,  so  that  home-building  could  progress  with  some  rapid 
ity,  if  one  can  really  give  the  name  of  home  to  a  shed  open  in 
front,  its  roof  of  poles  covered  by  long  shingles,  and  its  three 
sides  formed  of  bundles  of  long  ptairie  grass  pressed  close 
between  upright  stakes.  Such  a  shanty  sheltered  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  his  wife  and  some  of  the  others,  until  late  in  February, 
1856;  while  Jason's  mansion  during  that  period  consisted  only 
of  log  walls  and  a  roof  of  cotton  sheeting.  It  had  some  advan 
tages,  however,  for  Mrs.  Jason  Brown  wrote,  on  November 
25,  1855,  that  "the  little  house  we  live  in  now  has  no  floor  in 
it,  but  has  quite  a  good  chimney  in  so  that  I  can  cook  a  meal 
without  smoking  my  eyes  almost  out  of  my  head."  *  The  per 
manent  house-building  was  rendered  slow  and  difficult  by  the 
enfeeblement  of  two  of  the  new  arrivals,  for  Henry  Thomp 
son  and  Oliver  Brown  succumbed  to  the  prevailing  ague  in 
November,  and  had  not  recovered  by  the  end  of  the  month.2 
Nor  had  Jason  when,  late  in  November,  there  came  the  first 
real  call  to  arms  of  the  Brown  settlement,  to  which  its  poverty- 
stricken  owners  had  given  at  various  times  three  names, 
Brown's  Station,  Brownsville  and  Fairfield.  Not  one  of  them 
has  survived,  and  the  last,  from  the  beginning  a  misnomer, 
was  particularly  so  in  November,  1855,  not  only  because  of 
the  exceptionally  cold  and  bleak  Kansas  winter,  but  also 
because  of  the  reports  of  new  and  alarming  crimes  of  which 
Free  State  men  were  the  victims. 

The  killings  began  in  earnest  on  October  25,  at  Doniphan, 
a  town  near  Atchison,  when  Samuel  Collins,  owner  of  a  saw 
mill  at  Doniphan,  was  shot  by  a  pro-slavery  man,  Patrick 
Laughlin  by  name,  for  political  reasons.  Laughlin,  having 
betrayed  a  secret  Free  Soil  society  known  as  the  "Kansas 
Legion,"  of  which  he  had  for  a  time  been  a  member,  was  de- 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    113 

nounced  by  Collins  for  his  action.  Like  Montagues  and  Capu- 
lets,  they  met  armed  the  next  morning,  with  friends  or  rela 
tions  about  them.  When  the  fight  was  over,  Collins  lay  dead; 
Laughlin,  seriously  wounded,  recovered  and  lived  on  in  Atchi- 
son,  no  effort  being  made  to  indict  or  punish  him.3  If  there 
was  possibly  room  for  doubt  as  to  whether  Collins  or  Laugh 
lin  assumed  the  offensive,  there  was  none  whatever  in  the 
case  of  Charles  Dow,  a  young  Free  State  man  from  Ohio,  who 
was  shot  from  behind  and  cruelly  murdered  near  Hickory 
Point,  Douglas  County,  by  Franklin  N.  Coleman,  of  Virginia, 
a  pro-slavery  settler.  This  killing  was  due  to  a  quarrel  over 
Coleman's  cutting  timber  on  Dow's  claim,  and  was,  therefore, 
in  its  origin  non-political.  Yet  out  of  it,  too,  came  alarming 
political  consequences.  After  attending  a  Free  Soil  settlers' 
meeting,  called  November  26  to  protest  against  the  crime 
and  to  bring  the  murderer  to  justice,  Jacob  Branson,  the  Free 
State  man  with  whom  Dow  had  been  living,  was  arrested 
that  same  night  by  the  pro-slavery  sheriff,  Samuel  J.  Jones, 
who  resided  at  Westport,  Missouri.  Jones  was  postmaster  of 
Westport  while  also  sheriff  of  Douglas  County,  Kansas,  and 
as  will  be  seen,  the  gravest  menace  to  the  peace  of  the  little 
Lawrence  community.  The  pro-slavery  warrants  upon  which 
Jones  arrested  Branson  charged  him  with  making  threats  and 
with  breaches  of  the  peace.  As  Sheriff  Jones  and  his  posse, 
which  had  then  shrunk  to  fifteen  men,  neared  Blanton's 
Bridge  with  their  prisoner,  after  having  spent  two  hours 
carousing  at  a  house  on  the  road,  a  party  of  fifteen  Free  State 
men  headed  by  Samuel  N.  Wood,  of  Lawrence,  stopped  them 
with  levelled  guns.  In  the  parley  which  followed,  Branson 
went  over  to  his  rescuers,  who  absolutely  refused  to  recognize 
the  authority  of  Sheriff  Jones,  and  told  him  that  the  only  Jones 
they  knew  was  the  postmaster  at  Westport.  The  rescuing 
party  reached  Lawrence  with  Branson  before  dawn; 4  there 
it  was  at  once  recognized  that  the  rescue  would  give  the  pro- 
slavery  men  precisely  the  excuse  they  needed  for  an  attack 
upon  the  town.  To  an  excited  meeting  of  citizens  held  that 
evening,  Branson  related  his  story.  His  auditors  were,  how 
ever,  calm  enough  to  decline  all  responsibility  for  the  affair 
in  the  name  of  Lawrence.  Realizing  that  this  action  would 
probably  avail  them  but  little,  a  Committee  of  Safety  was 


114  JOHN  BROWN 

organized  to  form  the  citizens  into  guards  and  to  put  the  town 
into  a  position  of  defence.5 

Meanwhile,  Sheriff  Jones,  after  first  despatching  a  messen 
ger  to  his  own  State,  Missouri,  for  aid,  appealed  on  advice 
of  others  to  the  Governor  of  Kansas,  who  might  naturally  be 
expected  to  have  a  greater  interest  in  the  affair  than  any  one 
in  Missouri.6  Governor  Shannon's  interest  was  soon  suffi 
ciently  aroused  for  him  to  issue  to  the  murderer,  three  days 
after  the  crime,  a  commission  as  justice  of  the  peace.7  Being 
also  of  a  confiding  nature,  he  was  thus  doubly  prepared  to 
believe  the  exaggerated  statements  made  to  him  by  Sheriff 
Jones,  who  declared  that  he  must  have  no  less  than  three  thou 
sand  men  forthwith  in  order  to  carry  out  the  laws,8  as  the  Gov 
ernor  might  consider  an  "open  rebellion"  as  having  already 
commenced,  —  this  as  a  result  of  the  rescue  of  a  single  prisoner, 
in  which  not  a  shot  was  fired.  But  the  Free  State  men  having 
destroyed  three  cabins,  those  of  Coleman  and  two  settlers 
named  Hargus  and  Buckley,  and  thereby  frightened  some 
pro-slavery  families  into  returning  to  Missouri,  Jones  was 
easily  able  to  make  Governor  Shannon  think  that  an  armed 
band  had  burnt  a  number  of  homes,  destroyed  personal 
property,  and  turned  whole  families  out  of  doors.9  The  Gov 
ernor  at  once  ordered  Major-General  William  P.  Richardson 
and  Adjutant-General  H.  J.  Strickler,  of  the  newly  organized 
pro-slavery  militia,  to  repair  to  Lecompton  with  as  large  forces 
as  they  could  raise,  and  report  to  Sheriff  Jones  to  aid  him 
in  the  execution  of  any  legal  process  in  his  hands.10  This  was 
the  beginning  of  the  so-called  "Wakarusa  War." 

Thus  the  Branson  rescue  gave  the  extreme  pro-slavery  men 
the  opportunity  they  had  been  looking  for  to  mass  their  forces 
against  Lawrence.  But  it  is  also  probably  true  that,  as  Sheriff 
Jones  declared  later  in  an  affidavit,  he  would  have  met  with 
violence  had  he  attempted  to  serve  any  warrant  in  that  town 
where  the  citizens,  armed  with  the  much  dreaded  Sharp's 
rifles,  were  daily  drilling,  and  were  outspoken  in  their  refusal 
to  obey  any  of  the  laws  enacted  by  the  Pawnee  Legislature. 
Governor  Shannon,  being  sworn  to  enforce  the  laws  of  the  Ter 
ritory,  had  no  other  course  open  to  him  than  to  give  aid  to 
Jones.  But  his  pro-slavery  feelings  led  him  to  swallow  every 
statement  made  to  him  by  Jones.  In  the  number  of  men  he 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     115 

called  together,  his  willingness  to  have  Missourians  figure  as 
Kansas  militia,  and  his  readiness  to  assume  that  there  was 
a  serious  "rebellion"  in  Lawrence  despite  the  assertions  of 
its  citizens,  he  again  showed  his  bias.  Moreover,  he  cannot 
altogether  escape  the  charge  of  duplicity,  for,  while  he  never 
modified  his  orders  of  November  27  to  his  generals,  he  wrote 
to  President  Pierce  the  next  day  that  the  sheriff  had  called 
on  him  for  more  troops  than  were  really  needed,  that  "five  to 
eight  hundred  men"  would  be  enough.  If  his  excuse  for  this 
inconsistency  is  his  belief  that  his  generals  could  not  raise 
more  than  five  or  six  hundred  men,  instead  of  the  three  thou 
sand  Jones  asked  for,  he  certainly  did  not  make  it  plain  to 
the  citizens  of  Kansas  that  he  wanted  the  smaller  number. 
Again,  while  he  subsequently  testified  that  he  had  never 
dreamed  that  any  one  would  go  to  Missouri  for  men  to  rein 
force  Jones,  he  made  not  the  slightest  effort  to  reprove  any  one 
for  having  done  so,  or  to  send  back  those  citizens  of  Missouri 
who  were  there  in  the  belief  that  he  had  summoned  them. 
True,  he  wrote  to  Pierce  that  the  reinforcing  of  Jones  by 
sufficient  citizens  of  the  Territory  to  enable  him  to  execute 
his  processes  "is  the  great  object  to  be  accomplished,  to  avoid 
the  dreadful  evils  of  civil  war."  u  But  he  lifted  no  finger  to 
prevent  when  there  swarmed  into  Kansas  the  same  men  who 
had  already  invaded  Kansas  three  times  in  order  to  stuff  or 
steal  the  ballot-boxes,  and  were  now  only  too  happy  to  encamp 
near  Lawrence  with  guns  in  their  hands  under  the  sanction 
of  the  government.  His  subsequent  defence  that  after  the 
arrival  of  the  Missourians  he  deemed  it  best  "to  mitigate  an 
evil  which  it  was  impossible  to  suppress,  by  bringing  under 
military  control  these  irregular  and  excited  forces,"  12  reads 
oddly  enough.  He  did  beg  help  of  Pierce,  and  did  try  his  best 
to  call  out  the  United  States  troops  under  Colonel  E.  V.  Sum- 
ner  at  Fort  Leavenworth,  to  aid  him  in  preventing  an  attack 
on  the  citizens  of  Lawrence,  who  he  had  at  the  same  time  de 
clared  could  best  be  subdued  by  citizens  of  Kansas  reinforcing 
Sheriff  Jones!  In  other  words,  he  now  asked  Colonel  Sumner 
to  protect  Lawrence  from  Jones  and  his  men.  But  Sumner 
refused. 

Altogether,  Governor  Shannon  claimed,  two  hundred  and 
fifty  Kansas  militia  rendezvoused  near  Franklin  on  the  Waka- 


n6  JOHN  BROWN 

rusa,  a  small  tributary  of  the  Kansas  River,  south  of  Lawrence. 
But  this  statement  rests  on  his  assertion  alone;  most  students 
of  this  period  agree  that  not  many  more  than  fifty  Kansans 
joined  Major-General  Richardson  and  Adjutant-General 
Strickler.13  Of  the  Missourians,  the  first  company  to  appear 
at  Franklin  and  go  into  camp  as  Kansas  militia  was  one  of 
fifty  men  from  Westport,  Missouri.  At  Liberty  and  Lexing 
ton,  Missouri,  two  hundred  men  with  three  pieces  of  artillery 
and  one  thousand  stand  of  arms  were  quickly  brought  to 
gether  and  sent  into  Kansas.14  Brigadier-General  Lucien  J. 
Eastin,  commander  of  the  Second  Brigade  of  Kansas  Militia, 
was  also  editor  of  the  Leavenworth  Herald,  and  with  the  aid 
of  his  presses  not  only  ordered  his  own  "brigade"  to  assem 
ble  at  Leavenworth  on  December  I,  but  circulated  the  follow 
ing  appeal  throughout  the  Missouri  border  counties: 

TO   ARMS!   TO   ARMS!  ! 

It  is  expected  that  every  lover  of  Law  and  Order  will  rally  at 
Leavenworth,  on  Saturday  Dec.  1, 1 855,  prepared  to  march  at  once  to 
the  scene  of  the  rebellion,  to  put  down  the  outlaws  of  Douglas  County, 
who  are  committing  depredations  upon  persons  and  property,  burn 
ing  down  houses  and  declaring  open  hostility  to  the  laws,  and  have 
forcibly  rescued  a  prisoner  from  the  Sheriff.  Come  one,  come  all! 
The  laws  must  be  executed.  The  outlaws,  it  is  said,  are  armed  to 
the  teeth  and  number  1000  men.  Every  man  should  bring  his  rifle 
and  ammunition  and  it  would  be  well  to  bring  two  or  three  days' 
provisions.  Every  man  to  his  post,  and  do  his  duty.15 

Many  Citizens. 

A  letter  purporting  to  come  from  Daniel  Woodson,  the  Sec 
retary  of  the  Territory,  urging  Eastin  to  call  out  the  Platte 
County,  Missouri,  Rifle  Company,  "as  our  neighbors  are 
always  ready  to  help  us,"  and  adding  "do  not  implicate  the 
Governor  whatever  you  do,"  was  subsequently  denounced 
to  the  Howard  Committee  as  a  forgery  by  Mr.  Woodson 
when  under  oath.16  It  did  much,  however,  to  infuriate  the 
Kansans,  and  was  effectively  used  in  the  East  as  proof  of 
Shannon's  and  Woodson's  betrayal  of  Kansas.  The  highest 
estimate  of  those  who  assembled  to  besiege  Lawrence  is  one 
by  Sheriff  Jones  of  eighteen  hundred ;  it  is  generally  believed 
that  twelve  hundred  is  the  more  accurate  figure.17  Atchison 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     117 

was,  of  course,  conspicuous  in  urging  on  the  invasion.  Speak 
ing  at  Platte  City  on  December  I,  in  his  usual  bombastic 
style,  he  said :  18 

"Fellow  Citizens:  We  have  done  our  duty.  We  have  done  nothing 
but  our  duty.  Not  you  —  not  me  —  but  those  that  have  gone  into 
Kansas  to  aid  Governor  Shannon  to  sustain  the  law  and  put  down 
rebellion  and  insurrection.  250  men  are  now  on  the  march  and 
probably  500  more  will  go  from  the  County  of  Platte.  Why  are  you 
not  with  them  —  you  and  you?  I  wish  that  I  was  with  them  at 
their  head.  ..." 

In  St.  Louis,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Intelligencer,  on  Decem 
ber  I,  took  a  very  different  view  of  Missouri's  duty  from  that 
of  Atchison : 

"...  The  people  of  Missouri  are  not  the  ones  to  be  called  on  to 
back  up  the  miserable  political  puppets  that  Frank  Pierce  shall 
send  out  from  the  Eastern  States  to  play  the  fool  and  introduce 
bloodshed  and  anarchy  in  Kansas.  Now,  let  Pierce  reap  the  fruits 
of  his  imbecility.  Let  not  the  people  of  Missouri,  by  any  urgent 
appeal  or  cunning  device,  be  drawn  into  the  internal  feuds  of  Kan 
sas.  It  looks  very  much  as  if  there  were  a  preconcerted  effort  to 
do  this  very  thing.  ...  It  does  seem  to  us  that  one  of  the  devil's 
own  choicest  humbugs  is  exploding  in  the  call  on  Missouri  for 
'help.'" 

Naturally,  this  hastily  gathered  together  "army"  lacked 
cohesion  and  discipline ;  according  to  anti-slavery  descriptions, 
its  members  were  far  gone  in  drink  and  supported  themselves 
by  pillaging  the  neighborhood.  Andreas,  the  most  reliable  of 
Kansas  historians,  states  that  they  were  in  the  "delirium 
coming  from  exposure,  lack  of  food,  and  plentiful  supplies  of 
strong  drink,"  and  this  is  the  tenor  of  all  contemporary  Free 
Soil  accounts.19  In  the  Lexington,  Mo.,  Express  of  December 
7,  on  the  other  hand,  two  citizens  of  that  town  reported,  after 
having  visited  the  pro-slavery  forces,  that  all  the  men  were 
"comfortably  fixed,  with  plenty  of  provisions  and  all  were  in 
high  spirits  and  anxious  for  a  fray.  .  .  .  The  arrangements 
were  good,  and  the  most  perfect  order  and  decorum  were 
preserved  at  all  times.  The  sale  of  liquor  was  prohibited." 
Some  of  the  weapons  of  this  "noble  and  gallant  set  of  fellows" 
were  proved  before  the  Howard  Committee  to  have  been 
stolen  from  the  United  States  Arsenal  at  Liberty,  Mo.,  which 


Ii8  JOHN  BROWN 

arms  the  Border  Ruffians,  with  surprising  carelessness,  failed 
to  return  when  the  Wakarusa  "war"  was  over.20 

The  citizens  of  Lawrence,  on  hearing  of  the  coming  of  the 
Missourians,  were  content  neither  with  sending  away  Branson 
and  his  rescuers,  nor  with  organizing  their  citizens  as  guards, 
nor  with  fortifying  the  town  and  smuggling  a  howitzer  from  the 
North  through  the  enemy's  lines.  A  general  call  was  sent  out 
in  all  directions  to  Free  State  men  in  Kansas  to  come  to  the 
rescue  of  Lawrence.21  The  settlers  rallied  in  response,  arriving 
alone  and  in  squads,  on  foot,  on  horseback  and  in  wagons,  regu 
larly  armed  companies  coming  from  Bloomington,  Palmyra, 
Ottawa  Creek  and  Topeka.  Naturally,  it  was  the  opportunity 
for  which  the  Brown  minute-men  had  been  longing.  It  was 
not  until  December  6,  however,  that  authentic  news  reached 
them  of  what  was  going  on,  and  that  their  aid  was  asked. 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  on  the  way  to  Lawrence  on  horseback 
to  ascertain  the  facts,  when  the  runner  who  was  summoning 
the  countryside  met  him.  What  happened  then,  John  Brown 
himself  described  to  his  wife  and  children  at  North  Elba  in 
a  long  letter  dated  December  16,  1855: 

"On  getting  this  last  news  it  was  at  once  agreed  to  break  up  at 
Johns  Camp  &  take  Wealthy,  &  Jonny  to  Jason's  camp  (some  Two 
Miles  off) ;  &  that  all  the  men  but  Henry,  Jason  &  Oliver  should 
at  once  set  off  for  Lawrence  under  Arms;  those  Three  being  wholly 
unfit  for  duty.  We  then  set  about  providing  a  little  Corn-Bread; 
&  Meat,  Blankets,  Cooking  utensils,  running  Bullets  &  loading  all 
our  Guns,  Pistols  etc.  The  Five  set  off  in  the  Afternoon,  &  after 
a  short  rest  in  the  Night  (which  was  quite  dark),  continued  our 
march  untill  after  daylight  next  Morning  when  we  got  our  Break 
fast,  started  again;  &  reached  Lawrence  in  the  Forenoon,  all  of  us 
more  or  less  lamed  by  our  tramp.  On  reaching  the  place  we  found 
that  negotiations  had  commenced  between  Gov.  Shannon  (haveing 
a  force  of  some  Fifteen  or  Sixteen  Hundred  men)  &  the  principal 
leaders  of  the  Free-State  men ;  they  having  a  force  of  some  Five 
Hundred  men  at  that  time.  These  were  busy  Night  &  day  fortify 
ing  the  Town  with  Embankments;  &  circular  Earthworks  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Treaty  with  the  Gov,  as  an  attack  was  constantly  looked 
for;  notwithstanding  the  negotiations  then  pending.  This  state  of 
things  continued  from  Friday  until  Sunday  Evening.  On  the  Even 
ing  we  left  a  company  of  the  invaders  of  from  Fifteen  to  Twenty- 
five  attacked  some  Three  or  Four  Free-State  men,  mostly  unarmed, 
killing  a  Mr.  Barber  from  Ohio  wholly  unarmed.  His  boddy  was 
afterward  brought  in;  &  lay  for  some  days  in  the  room  afterward 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    119 

occupied  by  a  part  of  the  company  to  wh  we  belong;  (it  being 
organized  after  we  reached  Lawrence.)  The  building  was  a  large 
unfinished  Stone  Hotel;  in  which  a  great  part  of  the  Volunteers 
were  quartered ;  &  who  witnessed  the  scene  of  bringing  in  the  Wife 
&  other  friends  of  the  murdered  man.  I  will  only  say  of  this  scene 
that  it  was  Heart-rending;  &  calculated  to  exasperate  the  men  ex 
ceedingly;  &  one  of  the  sure  results  of  Civil  War.  After  frequently 
calling  on  the  leaders  of  the  Free-State  men  to  come  &  have  an 
interview  with  him,  by  Gov.  Shannon ;  &  after  as  often  getting  for 
an  answer  that  if  he  had  any  business  to  transact  with  anyone  in 
Lawrence,  to  come  &  attend  to  it ;  he  signified  his  wish  to  come  into 
the  Town;  &  an  escort  was  sent  to  the  Invaders'  Camp  to  conduct 
him  in.  When  there  the  leading  Free-State  men  finding  out  his 
weakness,  frailty  &  consciousness  of  the  awkward  circumstances 
into  which  he  had  really  got  himself;  took  advantage  of  his  Coward 
ice,  &  Folly;  &  by  means  of  that  &  the  free  use  of  Whiskey;  &  some 
Trickery;  succeeded  in  getting  a  written  arangement  with  him 
much  to  their  own  liking.  He  stipulated  with  them  to  order  the  pro- 
slavery  men  of  Kansas  home;  &  to  proclaim  to  the  Missouri  invaders 
that  they  must  quit  the  Territory  without  delay ;  and  also  to  give  up 
Gen.  Pomeroy  a  prisoner  in  their  camp;  which  was  all  done;  he  also 
recognizing  the  Volunteers  as  the  Militia  of  Kansas,  &  empowering 
their  Officers  to  call  them  out  whenever  in  their  discretion  the  safety 
of  Lawrence  or  other  portions  of  the  territory  might  require  it  to  be 
done.  He  Gov.  Shannon  gave  up  all  pretension  of  further  attemp 
to  enforce  the  enactments  of  the  Bogus  Legislature,  &  retired  sub 
ject  to  the  derision  &  scoffs  of  the  Free-State  men  (into  whose  hands 
he  had  committed  the  welfare  &  protection  of  Kansas);  &  to  the 
pity  of  some;  &  the  curses  of  others  of  the  invading  force.  So  ended 
this  last  Kansas  invasion  the  Missourians  returning  with  flying 
Colors,  after  incuring  heavy  expences;  suffering  great  exposure, 
hardships,  &  privations,  not  having  fought  any  Battles,  Burned 
or  destroyed  any  infant  towns  or  Abolition  Presses;  leaving  the 
Free-State  men  organized  &  armed,  &  in  full  possession  of  the  Ter 
ritory;  not  having  fulfilled  any  of  all  their  dreadful  threatenings, 
except  to  murder  One  unarmed  man;  &  to  commit  some  Roberies 
&  waste  of  propperty  upon  defenceless  families,  unfortunately  in 
their  power.  We  learn  by  their  papers  they  boast  of  a  great  vic 
tory  over  the  Abolitionists;  &  well  they  may.  Free-State  men 
have  only  hereafter  to  retain  the  footing  they  have  gained;  and 
Kansas  is  free.  Yesterday  the  people  passed  uppon  the  Free-State 
constitution.  The  result,  though  not  yet  known,  no  one  doubts.  One 
little  circumstance  connected  with  our  own  number  showing  a  little 
of  the  true  character  of  those  invaders:  On  our  way  about  Three 
Miles  from  Lawrence  we  had  to  pass  a  bridge  (with  our  Arms  & 
Amunition)  of  which  the  invaders  held  possession ;  but  as  the  Five 
had  each  a  Gun,  with  Two  large  Revolvers  in  a  Belt  (exposed  to 
view)  with  a  Third  in  his  Pocket;  &  as  we  moved  directly  on  to  the 


120  JOHN  BROWN 

Bridge  without  making  any  halt,  they  for  some  reason  suffered 
us  to  pass  without  interruption ;  notwithstanding  there  were  some 
Fifteen  to  Twenty-five  (as  variously  reported)  stationed  in  a  Log- 
House  at  one  end  of  the  Bridge.  We  could  not  count  them.  A  Boy 
on  our  approach  ran  &  gave  them  notice.  Five  others  of  our  Com 
pany,  well  armed;  who  followed  us  some  Miles  behind,  met  with 
equally  civil  treatment  the  same  day.  After  we  left  to  go  to  Law 
rence  until  we  returned  when  disbanded ;  I  did  not  see  the  least  sign 
of  cowardice  or  want  of  self-possession  exhibited  by  any  volunteer 
of  the  Eleven  companies  who  constituted  the  Free-State  force  &  I 
never  expect  again  to  see  an  equal  number  of  such  well-behaved, 
cool,  determined  men;  fully  as  I  believe  sustaining  the  high  char 
acter  of  the  Revolutionary  Fathers;  but  enough  of  this  as  we  intend 
to  send  you  a  paper  giving  a  more  full  account  of  the  affair.  We 
have  cause  for  gratitude  in  that  we  all  returned  safe,  &  well,  with 
the  exception  of  hard  Colds;  and  found  those  left  behind  rather 
improving."5 

It  would  be  hard  to  add  anything  to  this  admirable  summary 
of  the  close  of  the  Wakarusa  "  war."  That  it  was  temperate 
and  did  not  overemphasize  the  part  played  by  the  Missouri- 
ans  appears  from  the  opinion  of  John  Sherman  and  William 
A.  Howard,  of  the  Howard  Committee,  who  affirmed  that: 

"Among  the  many  acts  of  lawless  violence  which  it  has  been  the 
duty  of  your  Committee  to  investigate,  this  invasion  of  Lawrence  is 
the  most  defenceless.  A  comparison  of  the  facts  proven  with  the 
official  statements  of  the  officers  of  the  government  will  show  how 
groundless  were  the  pretexts  which  gave  rise  to  it.  A  community  in 
which  no  crime  had  been  committed  by  any  of  its  members,  against 
none  of  whom  had  a  warrant  been  issued  or  a  complaint  made,  who 
had  resisted  no  process  in  the  hands  of  a  real  or  pretended  officer, 
was  threatened  with  destruction  in  the  name  of  'law  and  order,' 
and  that,  too,  by  men  who  marched  from  a  neighboring  State  with 
arms  obtained  by  force  and  who  at  every  stage  of  their  progress  vio 
lated  many  laws,  and  among  others  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

"The  chief  guilt  must  rest  on  Samuel  J.  Jones.  His  character  is 
illustrated  by  his  language  at  Lecompton,  when  peace  was  made. 
He  said  Major  Clark  and  Burns  both  claimed  the  credit  of  killing 
that  damned  abolitionist,  (Barber)  and  he  did  n't  know  which  ought 
to  have  it.  If  Shannon  hadn't  been  a  damned  old  fool,  peace  would 
never  have  been  declared.  He  would  have  wiped  Lawrence  out. 
He  had  men  and  means  enough  to  do  it."23 

John  Brown's  company  comprised  others  than  himself  and 
his  four  sons,  Frederick,  Owen,  Salmon  and  John,  Jr.,  and  was 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     121 

well  named  the  "Liberty  Guards.'*  He  himself  received  here 
for  the  first  time  the  historic  title  of  Captain,  and  the  original 
muster  roll  of  his  company,  still  preserved,  gives  the  facts  as 
to  its  composition  and  service:24 

"Muster  Roll  of  Capt.  John  Brown's  Company  in  the  Fifth  Regi 
ment,  First  Brigade  of  Kansas  Volunteers,  commanded  by  Col. 
Geo.  W.  Smith,  called  into  the  service  of  the  people  of  Kansas  to 
defend  the  City  of  Lawrence,  in  the  Territory  of  Kansas  from 
threatened  demolition  by  foreign  invaders.  Enrolled  at  Osawatomie 
K.  T.  Called  into  the  service  from  the  27th  day  of  November,  A.  D. 
1855,  when  mustered,  to  the  I2th  day  of  December,  when  discharged. 
Service,  16  days.  Miles  travelled  each  way,  50.  Allowance  to  each 
for  use  of  horse  $24. 

"Remark  —  One  keg  of  powder  and  eight  pounds  of  lead  were 
furnished  by  William  Partridge  and  were  used  in  the  service." 

Age 

John  Brown  sert.  Capt.  55 

Wm.  W.  Up  De  Graff          1st     Lieut.  34 

Henry  H.  Williams  2nd        "  27 

Jas.  J.  Holbrook  3rd  23 

Ephraim  Reynolds  1st     Sergt.  25 

R.  W.  Wood  2nd  20 

Frederic  Brown  3rd  25 

John  Yelton  4th  26 

Henry  Alderman  1st     Corp  55 

H.  Harrison  Up  De  Graff    2nd    Corp  23 

Dan'l  W.  Collis  3rd    Corp  27 

Wm.  Partridge  4th       "  32 

Amos  D  Alderman  20 

Owen  Brown  31 

Salmon  Brown  19 

John  Brown,  jr.  34 

Francis  Brennen  29 

Wm.  W.  Coine  19 

Benj.  L.  Cochren  24 

Jeremiah  Harrison  22 

This  muster  roll  was  certified  to  as  correct  "on  honor"  by 
George  W.  Smith,  Colonel  commanding  the  Fifth  Regiment 
Kansas  Volunteers,  but  it  will  be  noted  that  it  gives  the  Lib 
erty  Guards  credit  for  at  least  nine  days  more  service  than 
they  were  entitled  to  according  to  John  Brown's  own  story. 
So  does  the  honorable  discharge  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  which 
was  countersigned  not  only  by  Colonel  Smith,  but  also  by 
J.  H.  Lane  as  General,  First  Brigade,  Kansas  Volunteers,  and 


122  JOHN  BROWN 

"C.  Robinson,  Maj.  Gen'L,"  in  that  it  dates  his  service  from 
November  27.  This  apparently  was  the  date  of  entry  into 
service  fixed  for  all  the  volunteers  of  this  quaint  "army," 
with  its  elaborate  organization  and  high  titles.25  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  active  service  of  the  Liberty  Guards  comprised 
only  Friday  the  7th  and  Saturday  the  8th  of  December,  dur 
ing  which  time  the  peace  negotiations  were  under  way.  They 
remained  in  Lawrence  until  the  I2th  or  later,  when  the  other 
companies  also  left  for  their  homes. 

In  his  narrative  of  what  happened  during  his  brief  partici 
pation  in  the  siege  of  Lawrence,  Brown  slurs  over  his  own 
part  in  the  proceedings,  which  was  sufficiently  conspicuous 
to  make  him  well  known  to  all  who  were  in  the  threatened 
town.  "I  did  not  see  Brown's  entry  into  Lawrence,"  writes 
R.  G.  Elliott,  at  the  time  an  editor  of  the  Kansas  Free  State, 
"which  was  the  first  introduction  of  the  mysterious  stranger 
into  the  Kansas  drama,  but  I  do  know  that  his  grim  visage, 
his  bold  announcements,  with  the  patriarchal  organization 
of  his  company,  gave  him  at  once  welcome  entrance  into  the 
military  counsels  of  the  defenders,  and  lightened  up  the  gloom 
of  the  besieged  in  their  darkest  hour."  26  Here  in  Kansas,  too, 
John  Brown  made  upon  every  one  the  impression  of  age, 
owing  to  the  stoop  of  his  shoulders,  the  measured  step,  the 
earnestness  and  impressiveness  of  his  manner,  and  other 
signs  of  seniority  and  natural  leadership,  even  though  there 
was  in  his  endurance,  the  resoluteness  of  his  movements,  and 
the  promptness  of  his  speech,  nothing  approaching  senility.* 
The  title  of  captain  fitted  him  readily;  where  he  was,  he  led. 
And  so  at  Lawrence,  —  hardly  arrived,  he  was  at  the  fortifi 
cations.  "There,"  reports  an  eye-witness,  James  F.  Legate,  he 
"walked  quietly  from  fort  to  fort  and  talked  to  the  men  sta 
tioned  there,  saying  to  each  that  it  was  nothing  to  die  if  their 
lives  had  served  some  good  purpose,  and  that  no  purpose  could 
be  higher  or  better  than  that  which  called  us  to  surrender 
life,  if  need  be,  to  repel  such  an  invasion."  27  Even  though 
the  discussion  of  peace  was  on,  he  suggested  the  gathering  of 
pitchforks  for  use  in  repelling  a  possible  charge.28  The  peace 
itself  produced  in  him  only  anger,  when  first  he  heard  of  it. 

*  The  Lawrence  Herald  of  Freedom  reported  the  arrival  on  December  7  of 
"Mr.  John  Brown,  an  aged  gentleman  from  Essex  County,  N.  Y."d 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    123 

It  was  not  only,  as  he  wrote  to  Orson  Day  on  reaching  home, 
that  there  was  "a  good  deal  of  trickery  on  the  one  side  and 
of  cowardice,  folly,  &  drunkenness  on  the  other;"  29  there  was 
suppression  of  facts  as  well.  For  the  actual  terms  of  peace, 
involving  as  they  did  a  compromise,  were  at  first  concealed 
by  the  leaders  in  expectation  of  dissatisfaction.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  agreement  pledged  the  Free  State  men  to  "aid  in 
the  execution  of  the  laws  when  called  upon  by  proper  author 
ity;"  its  equivocal  concluding  sentence  read:  "We  wish  it 
understood,  that  we  do  not  herein  express  any  opinion  as  to 
the  validity  of  the  enactments  of  the  Territorial  Legislature." 
This  was  signed  on  December  8. 

An  open-air  meeting  was  held  on  Saturday  afternoon  about 
the  still  unfinished  Free  State  Hotel,  where  a  box  outside  the 
door  -served  as  a  platform  and  door-sill,  there  being  no  steps 
but  planks  leading  to  the  ground.  Shannon,  Robinson  and 
Lane,  fresh  from  signing  the  treaty,  harangued  the  crowd. 
What  the  terms  of  the  treaty  were,  they  would  tell  no  one 
that  day.  Shannon  expressed  his  satisfaction  at  the  discovery 
that  he  had  misunderstood  the  people  of  Lawrence,  that  they 
were  really  estimable  and  orderly  persons.  He  hoped  now  to 
preserve  order  and  get  out  of  the  Territory  the  Missourians, 
who,  he  remarked,  were  there  of  their  own  accord.  Lane's 
eloquence  evoked  cheers;  he  declared  that  "any  man  who 
would  desert  Lawrence  until  the  invaders  below  had  left  the 
Territory,  was  a  coward."  Governor  Robinson  was  pacific,  dis 
creet  and  brief.  He  stated,  according  to  William  Phillips,  the 
Tribune's  correspondent,  that  "they  had  taken  an  honorable 
position."  30  But  the  crowd  was  not  so  sure  of  that.  A  rumor 
had  been  circulating  that  the  treaty  was  in  reality  a  complete 
surrender  on  the  part  of  Robinson  and  Lane,  and  an  accept 
ance  of  the  hated  pro-slavery  laws.  John  Brown,  boiling  over 
with  anger,  mounted  the  shaky  platform  and  addressed  the 
audience  when  Robinson  had  finished.  He  declared  that 
Lawrence  had  been  betrayed,  and  told  his  hearers  that  they 
should  make  a  night  attack  upon  the  pro-slavery  forces  and 
drive  them  out  of  the  Territory.  "I  am  an  Abolitionist,"  he 
said,  "dyed  in  the  wool,"  and  then  he  offered  to  be  one  of  ten 
men  to  make  a  night  attack  upon  the  Border  Ruffian  camp. 
Armed  and  with  lanterns,  his  plan  was  to  string  his  men  along 


124  JOHN  BROWN 

the  camp  far  apart.  At  a  given  signal  in  the  early  morning 
hours,  they  were  to  shout  and  fire  on  the  slumbering  enemy. 
"And  I  do  believe,"  declared  John  Brown  in  telling  of  it, 
"that  the  whole  lot  would  have  run."  31  Lane,  too,  had  been 
secretly  in  favor  of  an  attack,  but  peace  councils  prevailed.32 
John  Brown  was  pulled  down  by  friends  and  foes  from  the 
improvised  rostrum,  and,  according  to  one  responsible  witness, 
it  was  Robinson  who  stamped  out  the  incipient  mutiny  by 
calmly  assuring  the  crowd  that  the  unpublished  treaty  was  a 
triumph  of  diplomacy.33 

That  same  evening,  Shannon,  Lane  and  Robinson  spoke  to 
thirteen  pro-slavery  captains  at  Franklin,  who  grumblingly 
accepted  the  treaty  and  gave  their  word  that  they  would 
endeavor  to  induce  the  Missourians  to  return  quietly  to  their 
homes.34  But  the  Missouri  leaders  were  not  all  pleased  at 
the  outcome.  General  Stringfellow  declared,  in  a  speeck  in  the 
camp  near  Lecompton,  that  "Shannon  has  played  us  false; 
the  Yankees  have  tricked  us."  Sheriff  Jones's  regret  that 
Shannon  did  not  wipe  out  Lawrence  has  already  been  recorded. 
Atchison  was  for  peace,  —  there  are  doubts  if  he  really  was 
a  fighting  man  when  it  came  to  the  point.  "If  you  attack 
Lawrence  now,"  he  declared,  "you  attack  it  as  a  mob,  and 
what  would  be  the  result?  You  would  cause  the  election 
of  an  Abolition  President  and  the  ruin  of  the  Democratic 
party."  35  If  there  was  some  grumbling  among  the  rank  and 
file  at  Shannon's  ordering  them  to  return  to  their  homes,  the 
cold  storm  of  that  Saturday  night  helped  on  the  dissolution 
of  the  pro-slavery  forces.  Many  left  on  Monday  morning, 
worn,  sleepless  and  frozen.  Moreover,  the  whiskey  had  given 
out,  and  this,  with  the  fear  of  a  possible  Free  State  attack, 
sent  more  and  more  home,  until  on  Tuesday  only  a  few  par 
ties  remained.  Finally,  these  few  gave  in  to  the  inevitable  and 
departed,  says  Phillips,  "cursing  Shannon  and  the  'cunning 
Abolitionists.' " 38 

As  for  Shannon,  the  tricky  Robinson  had  again  taken  ad 
vantage  of  his  weakness  by  inviting  him  and  Sheriff  Jones 
to  a  peace  gathering  in  the  Free  State  Hotel  on  Sunday  even 
ing,  December  9,  despite  protests  from  Lane  and  others  that 
no  such  enemy  of  Lawrence  as  Jones  should  be  given  the 
right  hand  of  fellowship.  In  the  course  of  the  evening,  when 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     125 

the  Governor  was  thoroughly  enjoying  himself,  Robinson 
rushed  up  to  him  and  informed  him  that  the  Missourians 
had  left  the  Wakarusa  and  were  marching  on  Lawrence.  He 
insisted  that  the  Governor  should  at  once  sign  a  paper  author 
izing  him  and  Lane  to  defend  the  town.  The  Governor,  after 
a  little  urging,  put  his  name  to  the  following  document: 

To  C.  Robinson  and  J.  H.  Lane,  commanders  of  the  Enrolled 
Citizens  of  Lawrence: 

You  are  hereby  authorized  and  directed  to  take  such  measures 
and  use  the  enrolled  forces  under  your  command  in  such  manner, 
for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  and  the  protection  of  the  persons 
and  property  of  the  people  of  Lawrence  and  its  vicinity,  as  in  your 
judgment  shall  best  secure  that  end. 

WILSON  SHANNON. 

LAWRENCE,  Dec.  9,  1855. 

His  Excellency  thereupon  returned  to  the  delights  of  the 
reception  and,  says  Phillips,  "on  that  eventful  Sunday,  if 
Governors  ever  get  drunk,  his  supreme  highness,  Wilson  the 
First,  got  superlatively  tipsy."  37 

When  he  came  to  his  senses  and  discovered  that  he  had 
given  legal  authority  to  arm  and  fight  to  the  leaders  of  that 
very  mob  to  suppress  which  he  had  called  out  the  Territorial 
militia,  he  was  properly  chagrined.  The  force  which  he  had 
denounced  for  assembling  to  upset  the  laws  was  now  duly 
empowered  by  him  to  act  at  its  own  discretion  without  limit 
of  time.  Naturally,  the  Governor  was  indignant.  In  a  long 
letter  to  the  Kansas  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald, 
dated  December  25,  1855,  he  sought  to  justify  himself  and 
explain  his  predicament,  saying:38 

"...  amid  an  excited  throng,  in  a  small  and  crowded  apartment, 
and  without  any  critical  examination  of  the  paper  which  Dr.  Rob 
inson  had  just  written,  I  signed  it;  but  it  was  distinctly  understood 
that  it  had  no  application  to  anything  but  the  threatened  attack 
on  Lawrence  that  night.  ...  It  did  not  for  a  moment  occur  to  me 
that  this  pretended  attack  upon  the  town  was  but  a  device  to  obtain 
from  me  a  paper  which  might  be  used  to  my  prejudice.  I  supposed 
at  the  time  that  I  was  surrounded  by  gentlemen  and  by  grateful 
hearts,  and  not  by  tricksters,  who,  with  fraudulent  representations, 
were  seeking  to  obtain  an  advantage  over  me.  I  was  the  last  man 
on  the  globe  who  deserved  such  treatment  from  the  citizens  of 
Lawrence." 


126  JOHN  BROWN 

It  is  evident  that  the  Governor  had  reason  for  his  anger. 
Dr.  Robinson's  successful  stratagem  can  best  be  justified  by 
that  familiar  theory  that  everything  is  permissible  in  war. 
This  has  excused  many  a  more  heinous  crime;  but  Shannon 
could  properly  have  urged  that,  as  peace  had  been  signed,  this 
trick  was  indefensible  even  as  a  war  measure. 

The  treaty  was,  from  the  beginning,  an  ill-fated  document, 
and  met  the  destiny  double-dealing  compromises  deserve. 
As  events  turned  out,  the  Missourians  had  their  revenge  on 
Lawrence  and  Robinson  within  seven  months.  Though  he 
afterwards  became  a  respected  citizen  of  Lawrence,  Shannon 
was,  until  his  removal  in  1856,  despised  by  its  residents  and 
berated  by  the  pro-slavery  men  in  and  out  of  the  Territory, 
who  sought  to  saddle  upon  him  the  blame  for  their  undeniable 
defeat.  "The  discomfited  and  lop-eared  invaders,"  wrote 
Horace  Greeley  in  the  Tribune  of  December  25,  in  character 
istic  style,  "pretend  that  against  their  wish  they  were  kept 
from  fighting  by  the  pusillanimity  of  Gov.  Shannon."  Thus 
ended  the  Wakarusa  "war."  It  had  cost  but  one  life,  that  of 
Barber,  the  unexpected  sight  of  whose  dead  body  in  the  Free 
State  Hotel  had  done  much  to  make  Shannon  see  some  justice 
in  the  Free  Soil  cause.  Barber  had  been  shot  from  behind, 
probably  by  the  United  States  Indian  agent,  Major  George 
E.  Clarke,  for  the  sole  reason  that  he  had  been  visiting  Law 
rence.  "  I  have  sent  another  of  those  damned  Abolitionists  to 
his  winter  quarters,"  boasted  Clarke.  But  Colonel  James  N. 
Burns,  of  Missouri,  disputed  his  right  to  this  honor,  and,  since 
both  fired  at  the  same  moment,  no  one  has  ever  been  able  to 
decide  to  whom  Barber  owed  his  death  wound.39 

The  night  after  his  abruptly  ended  speech  John  Brown 
passed  with  James  F.  Legate.  He  asked  Legate  for  minute 
particulars  of  the  latter's  ten  years  of  experience  in  the  South, 
so  far  as  it  related  to  the  slaves,  asking  especially  if  they 
had  any  attachment  for  their  masters  and  would  fight  for 
liberty.  Then  they  had  an  argument  as  to  the  nature  of 
prayer;  it  ended  by  Brown's  praying  for  power  to  repel  the 
slaveholders,  the  enemies  of  God,  and  for  freedom  all  over 
the  earth.40 

On  December  14,  Brown,  his  four  sons  and  their  half- 
starved  horse,  which  dragged  the  heavily  laden  wagon,  were 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     127 

back  and  settled  at  Brown's  Station,  apparently  reconciled 
to  the  treaty,  for  on  that  date  he  wrote  to  Orson  Day  of  his 
over-sanguine  belief  that  "the  Territory  is  now  entirely  in 
the  power  of  the  Free  State  men,"  and  of  his  confident  expec 
tation  that  the  "Missourians  will  give  up  all  further  hope  of 
making  Kansas  a  Slave  State."  41 

The  result  of  the  vote  on  the  Free  State  Constitution,  on 
December  15,  further  helped  to  make  John  Brown  contented 
with  the  Shannon  compromise.  Apparently  there  was  a  peace 
ful  winter  before  them,  and  this  proved  to  be  the  case.  Its 
very  inclemency  made  further  hostile  operations  impossible, 
and  left  the  Kansans  free  to  keep  body  and  soul  together  as 
best  they  could.  John  Brown  himself  utilized  the  opportunity 
to  go  a  number  of  times  into  the  enemy's  country  in  January 
in  search  of  supplies,  without  meeting  with  any  unpleasant 
experiences.  On  January  I,  1856,  he  wrote  from  West  Point, 
Missouri,  "  In  this  part  of  the  State  there  seems  to  be  but  little 
feeling  on  the  slave  question."  42  As  the  temperature  had 
ranged  from  ten  to  twenty-eight  degrees  below  zero  in  the 
week  previous  to  his  writing,  and  there  were  in  places  ten 
inches  of  snow  on  the  ground,  it  is  obvious  that  the  need  of 
pork  and  flour  which  made  Brown  venture  forth  must  have 
been  pressing.  By  the  4th  he  was  back  in  Osawatomie  again, 
for  on  the  5th  he  was  appointed  chairman  of  a  convention 
in  Osawatomie,  called  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  State 
officers.  His  son,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  duly  nominated  for 
the  Legislature,  and,  so  Henry  Thompson  reported  the  next 
day,  "the  meeting  went  off  without  any  excitement  and  to 
our  satisfaction."  43  This  was  but  an  index  of  the  place  the 
Browns  had  already  made  for  themselves,  a  recognition  of 
their  dominating  characters.  Further  proof  of  this  is  to  be 
found  in  a  letter  from  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  her  mother-in- 
law.  Writing  on  January  6,  1856,  she  says:  "You  need  not  in 
the  least  feel  uneasy  about  your  husband,  he  seems  to  enjoy 
life  well,  and  I  believe  he  is  now  situated  so  as  to  do  a  great 
deal  of  good ;  he  certainly  seems  to  be  a  man  here  who  exhibits 
a  great  amount  of  influence  and  is  considered  one  of  the  most 
leading  and  influential  minds  about  here.  .  .  .  Our  men  have 
so  much  war  and  elections  to  attend  to  that  it  seems  as  though 
we  were  a  great  while  getting  into  a  house." 44 


128  JOHN  BROWN 

On  the  8th  of  January,  John  Brown  went  back  to  Missouri 
for  more  provisions,  accompanied  by  Salmon  and  driving  the 
faithful  horse  for  the  last  time,  since  that  hard-worked  ani 
mal  must  needs  be  sold  to  a  pro-slavery  master,  that  the  pro 
visions  might  be  obtained  for  the  oxen  to  bring  home,  and  to 
replace  moneys  belonging  to  S.  L.  Adair  used  by  John  Brown 
on  the  road  to  Kansas.  "By  means  of  the  sale  of  our  Horse 
and  Waggon:  our  present  wants  are  tolerably  well  met;  so 
that  if  health  is  continued  to  us  we  shall  not  probably  suffer 
much,"  wrote  Brown  to  his  wife  on  February  i,  on  his  return 
from  a  third  trip  to  Missouri.  He  reported  also  that  the 
weather  continued  very  severe:  "It  is  now  nearly  Six  Weeks 
that  the  Snow  has  been  almost  constantly  driven  (like  dry 
sand)  by  the  fierce  Winds  of  Kansas."  There  were  also  serious 
alarms  of  war:  "We  have  just  learned  of  some  new;  and  shock 
ing  outrages  at  Leavenworth:  and  that  the  Free-State  people 
there  have  fled  to  Lawrence:  which  place  is  again  threatend 
with  an  attack.  Should  that  take  place  we  may  soon  again 
be  called  upon  to  'buckle  on  our  armor;*  which  by  the  help 
of  God  we  will  do:  when  I  suppose  Henry,  &  Oliver  will  have 
a  chance."  45  He  added,  however,  that  in  his  judgment  there 
would  be  no  general  disturbance  until  warmer  weather.  In 
this  view  he  was  as  correct  as  he  had  previously  been  wrong 
in  estimating  the  results  of  the  Wakarusa  "war." 

The  Leavenworth  troubles,  to  which  he  referred,  were  so 
serious  as  to  be  taken  on  both  sides  as  ending  the  truce  signed 
by  Shannon,  They  grew  out  of  the  election,  on  January  15, 
of  members  of  the  Free  Soil  Legislature  and  the  State  officers 
under  the  Topeka  Constitution.  Just  as  the  Missourians  had 
refrained  from  interfering  with  the  Free  State  voting  in  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  they  now  permitted  the  January 
15  election  to  pass  off  in  peace,  except  at  Leavenworth,  where 
the  pro-slavery  mayor  forbade  the  holding  of  the  election.  It 
took  place  clandestinely  and  was  then  adjourned  to  Easton, 
twelve  miles  away,  where  it  was  again  held  on  the  I7th,  de 
spite  the  disarming  and  driving  away  of  some  of  the  Free  State 
voters.  That  night  there  was  severe  fighting  between  the  two 
sides,  in  which  the  pro-slavery  men  lost  one  killed  and  two 
wounded,  while  two  of  the  Free  Soilerswere  injured.  Later, 
the  pro-slavery  forces,  which  had  been  reinforced  by  a  militia 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    129 

company,  the  Kickapoo  Rangers,  captured  Captain  Reese  P. 
Brown,  the  leader  of  the  Free  State  men,  as  he  was  returning  to 
Leavenworth.  Him  the  Rangers  mortally  wounded  the  next 
day,  when  he  was  unarmed  and  defenceless.46  "These  men, 
or  rather  demons, "  reported  Phillips  to  the  Tribune,  Crushed 
around  Brown  and  literally  hacked  him  to  death  with  their 
hatchets."  Not  an  effort  was  made  to  punish  the  murderers, 
though  they  were  well  known  to  the  Territorial  authorities. 
Some  of  the  pro-slavery  newspapers,  like  Stringfellow's  Squat 
ter  Sovereign,  upheld  the  deed,  that  journal  calling  for  "War! 
War!!/'  47  The  Leavenworth  Herald  justified  the  murder  and 
gave  notice  to  the  Free  State  men  that:  "These  higher-law 
men  will  not  be  permitted  longer  to  carry  on  their  illegal  and 
high-handed  proceedings.  The  good  sense  of  the  people  is 
frowning  it  down.  And  if  it  cannot  be  in  one  way  it  will  in 
another."  48  The  Kansas  Pioneer  of  Kickapoo  was  an  acces 
sory  to  Brown's  murder  before  the  fact,  for  on  the  morning 
of  the  crime  it  had  published  this  appeal:  "Sound  the  bugle 
of  war  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  and  leave 
not  an  Abolitionist  in  the  Territory  to  relate  their  treach 
erous  and  contaminating  deeds.  Strike  your  piercing  rifle 
balls  and  your  glittering  steel  to  their  black  and  poisonous 
hearts."  49 

But  the  black-hearted  Free  Soilers  voted  nevertheless,  cast 
ing,  in  the  entire  Territory,  1628  ballots  for  Mark  W.  Dela- 
hay,  the  candidate  for  delegate  to  Congress  who  had  just 
previously,  on  December  22,  1855,  had  a  taste  of  Missouri 
intolerance,  when  the  printing-presses  of  his  Leavenworth 
newspaper,  the  Territorial  Register,  were  thrown  into  the  Mis 
souri  River  because  of  the  Free  Soil  sentiments  of  its  editor.80 
For  Charles  Robinson  as  Governor  there  were  cast  1296  votes. 
This  result  increased  the  anger  of  the  pro-slavery  men.  On  that 
day  of  balloting,  Sheriff  Jones  wrote  to  Robinson  and  Lane, 
asking  whether  they  had  or  had  not  pledged  themselves  to  aid 
him  with  a  posse  in  serving  a  writ.  Their  answer  was  only 
that  they  would  make  no  "further  resistance  to  the  arrest 
by  you  of  one  of  the  rescuers  of  Branson,  ...  as  we  desire 
to  test  the  validity  of  the  enactments  of  the  body  that  met 
at  the  Mission,  calling  themselves  the  Kansas  Legislature,  by 
an  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States."  " 


130  JOHN  BROWN 

Jones  and  the  Border  Ruffians  thereupon  insisted  that  the 
Free  State  men  had  violated  the  truce  of  Lawrence,  and 
deemed  themselves  no  longer  bound  by  it.  By  February  4, 
ex-Senator  Atchison  was  again  threatening  the  sword  of  ex 
termination,  or  rather  the  bowie-knife:  "Send  your  young 
men  .  .  .  drive  them  [the  Abolitionists]  out.  .  .  .  Get  ready, 
arm  yourselves;  for  if  they  abolitionize  Kansas  you  lose 
$100,000,000  of  your  property.  I  am  satisfied  I  can  justify 
every  act  of  yours  before  God  and  a  jury,"  52  —  words  that 
could  not  have  gone  unread  at  Brown's  Station,  where 
they  must  have  received  pro-slavery  newspapers  as  well  as 
Free  Soil  ones.  The  election  had  passed  off  quietly  enough 
at  Osawatomie,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  being  duly  elected  to  the 
Legislature,  but  shortly  afterwards  the  minute-men  led  in  the 
expulsion  of  a  claim- jumper,  as  a  result  of  a  settlers'  meet 
ing  held  on  January  24  to  consider  the  case.  Henry  Thompson, 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  his  brothers  Oliver  and  Frederick  were 
the  committee  which,  well  armed,  knocked  the  man's  door  in 
and  threw  his  belongings  out.  Henry  Thompson's  part  was 
watching,  with  a  loaded  revolver  in  his  hand,  every  action  of 
the  claim-jumper  until  he  disappeared  in  the  distance,  vowing 
vengeance  on  each  and  every  Brown.53 

It  was  also  on  January  24,  that  President  Pierce  sent  a  special 
message  to  Congress  which  aroused  the  ire  of  every  Free  State 
settler,  and  of  every  anti-slavery  man  the  country  over.  In  it, 
yielding  to  the  influence  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  of  Governor 
Shannon,  who  was  then  in  Washington,  he  squarely  took  the 
side  of  the  South,  proclaiming  the  pro-slavery  Shawnee  Legis 
lature  legal,  whatever  election  frauds  might  have  been  com 
mitted,  and  denouncing  the  acts  of  the  Free  State  men  as 
without  law  and  revolutionary  in  character,  "avowedly  so 
in  motive,"  which  would  become  "treasonable  insurrection" 
if  they  went  to  the  "length  of  organized  resistance  by  force  to 
the  fundamental  or  any  other  Federal  law,  and  to  the  author 
ity  of  the  general  government."  On  February  n  the  Presi 
dent  went  even  further,  and  issued  a  proclamation  which  de 
prived  the  Free  State  forces  of  all  hope  of  any  aid  from  the 
Federal  Government.  It  placed  the  entire  authority  and  power 
of  the  United  States  on  the  side  of  pro-slavery  men,  and  of  all 
those  persons  who  opposed  the  Topeka  movement.  While 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    131 

condemning  the  lawless  acts  of  both  sides,  he  placed  the  Fort 
Riley  and  Fort  Leavenworth  troops  at  Shannon's  behest, 
except  that  he  was  cautioned  not  to  call  upon  them  unless  it 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  do  so  to  enforce  the  laws  and  keep 
peace ;  even  then  this  proclamation  must  be  read  aloud  before 
the  soldiers  acted.  Naturally,  the  South  rejoiced  and  the 
hearts  of  the  defenders  of  Lawrence  were  downcast.  The 
Squatter  Sovereign  was  emboldened  on  February  20  to  say: 
"In  our  opinion  the  only  effectual  way  to  correct  the  evils 
that  now  exist  is  to  hang  up  to  the  nearest  tree  the  very  last 
traitor  who  was  instrumental  in  getting  up,  or  participating 
in,  the  celebrated  Topeka  Convention." 

John  Brown  had  anticipated  this  action  of  Pierce's,  and  his 
feelings  sought  relief  on  the  same  day  in  the  following  letter 
to  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  the  well-known  anti-slavery  Congress 
man  from  Ohio: 

OSAWATOMIE  KANSAS  TERRITORY  2Oth  Feby  1856 
HON.  JOSHUA  R.  GIDDINGS 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
DEAR  SIR, 

I  write  to  say  that  a  number  of  the  United  States  Soldiers  are 
quartered  in  this  vicinity  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  removing 
intruders  from  certain  Indian  Lands.  It  is,  however,  believed  that 
the  Administration  has  no  thought  of  removing  the  Missourians 
from  the  Indian  Lands;  but  that  the  real  object  is  to  have  these 
men  in  readiness  to  act  in  the  enforcement  of  those  Hellish  enact 
ments  of  the  (so  called)  Kansas  Legislature ;  absolutely  abominated 
by  a  great  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Territory;  and  spurned 
by  them  up  to  this  time.  I  confidently  believe  that  the  next  move 
ment  on  the  part  of  the  Administration  and  its  Proslavery  masters 
will  be  to  drive  the  people  here,  either  to  submit  to  those  Infernal 
enactments;  or  to  assume  what  will  be  termed  treasonable  grounds 
by  shooting  down  the  poor  soldiers  of  the  country  with  whom  they 
have  no  quarrel  whatever.  I  ask  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God;  I 
ask  in  the  name  of  our  venerated  fore-fathers ;  I  ask  in  the  name  of 
all  that  good  or  true  men  ever  held  dear;  will  Congress  suffer  us  to 
be  driven  to  such  ' '  dire  extremities ' '  ?  Will  anything  be  done  ?  Please 
send  me  a  few  lines  at  this  place.  Long  acquaintance  with  your 
public  life,  and  a  slight  personal  acquaintance  incline  and  embolden 
me  to  make  this  appeal  to  yourself. 

"Everything  is  still  on  the  surface  here  just  now.  Circumstances, 
however,  are  of  a  most  suspicious  character. 

Very  Respectfully  yours, 

JOHN  BROWN." 


132  JOHN  BROWN 

Before  this  earnest  letter  was  far  on  its  way  there  came  an 
important  answer  to  its  appeal,  and  to  the  proclamation  of 
the  President,  in  the  organization  of  the  "National  Republi 
can  Party"  at  Pittsburgh,  February  22,  1856,  the  name  of 
Charles  Robinson  being  placed  on  its  National  Committee 
as  representative  of  Kansas,  on  the  motion  of  S.  N.  Wood, 
leader  of  the  Branson  rescuers,  who  was  present  as  a  delegate. 
On  account  of  the  terrible  weather  55  —  the  snow  was  often 
eighteen  inches  deep,  and  the  thermometer  as  low  as  twenty- 
seven  degrees  below  zero  —  the  mails  were  slow  in  leaving 
Kansas,56  and  it  was  not  until  March  17  that  Mr.  Giddings 
assured  his  Osawatomie  correspondent: 

*  ...  you  need  have  no  fear  of  the  troops.  The  President  will 
never  dare  employ  the  troops  of  the  United  States  to  shoot  the  citi 
zens  of  Kansas.  The  death  of  the  first  man  by  the  troops  will  involve 
every  free  State  in  your  own  fate.  It  will  light  up  the  fires  of  civil 
war  throughout  the  North,  and  we  shall  stand  or  fall  with  you.  Such 
an  act  will  also  bring  the  President  so  deep  in  infamy  that  the  hand 
of  political  resurrection  will  never  reach  him.  .  .  ,"57 

Governor  Shannon  returned  to  Kansas  on  March  5,  ex 
ulting  in  his  having  the  regular  troops  commanded  by  Colo 
nel  Sumner  under  him,  especially  as  that  excellent  officer 
had  refused  to  come  to  his  aid  during  the  Wakarusa  "war" 
without  express  authority  from  Washington.58  The  day  be 
fore,  on  March  4,  the  Free  State  Legislature  had  duly  as 
sembled  as  required  by  the  Topeka  Constitution,  without 
the  slightest  regard  for  Pierce's  message  or  proclamation.69 
It  remained  in  session  only  eleven  days,  receiving  Governor 
Robinson's  inaugural  address,  electing  Governor  Lane  and 
ex-Governor  Reeder  Senators  of  the  United  States  in  the 
event  of  the  State's  being  admitted  to  the  Union,  preparing 
a  memorial  to  Congress  begging  that  admission,  and  receiv 
ing  the  report  of  the  Territorial  Executive  Committee,  headed 
by  Lane,  which  then  went  out  of  existence.  Adjournment 
was  on  March  15  until  July  4,  when  it  met  again,  only  to 
be  dispersed  by  Colonel  Sumner's  troopers.  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  was  in  attendance  at  the  session  in  March;  his  father 
recorded  this  in  a  letter  to  North  Elba  on  March  6,  in 
which  he  also  complained  of  the  lack  of  any  letters  or  news 
because  of  deep  snows  and  high  water,  so  that,  he  wrote,  "  we 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     133 

have  no  idea  what  Congress  has  done  since  early  in  Jany :"  M 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  did  not,  however,  arrive  in  Topeka,  with 
Henry  H.  Williams,  a  fellow  Representative,  until  the  morn 
ing  of  the  5th,  so  Mr.  Williams  wrote  on  the  7th  to  a  friend. 
His  letter  shows  that  there  was  considerable  trepidation 
among  the  arriving  delegates  in  view  of  Pierce's  position. 
" Shannon,"  he  wrote,  "is  at  the  Big  Springs  on  a  bender  I 
learn.  .  .  .  Mr.  Brown  has  been  put  on  a  committee  to  se 
lect  six  candidates  from  which  three  are  to  be  elected  Com 
missioners  to  revise  and  codify  the  laws  and  rules  of  prac 
tise.  .  .  ."» 

Only  fifteen  of  the  Topeka  legislators  signed  the  memorial 
to  Congress  asking  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  Free 
State  under  the  Topeka  Constitution,  a  copy  of  which  was 
attached  to  their  petition.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  of  course  one 
of  the  fifteen.62  He  was  also  one  of  the  committee  of  three 
to  draft  resolutions  in  regard  to  the  murder  of  Captain  R.  P. 
Brown.  He  figured  also  as  a  member  of  the  standing  com 
mittee  on  vice  and  immorality,  and  presented  a  petition  from 
fifty-six  ladies  of  Topeka  praying  for  the  enactment  of  a  law 
prohibiting  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  liquor,63  for  all  of 
which  legislative  service,  and  for  his  subsequent  partaking  in 
the  meetings  of  the  committee  to  select  the  commissioners 
to  codify  the  laws,64  this  unfortunate  man  paid  a  terrible 
price  within  the  next  three  months.  Soon  after  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  returned,  his  father,  Frederick  and  Oliver  Brown,  and 
Henry  Thompson  went  on  a  surveying  tour  to  the  west  of 
their  settlement,  fixing  the  boundaries  of  their  lands  for  the 
Indian  neighbors  they  had  learned  to  respect  and  like.  The 
Ottawas,  having  found  that  many  whites  were  settling  on 
their  lands,  held  a  council  and  asked  the  Browns  to  trace  their 
southern  boundary.  "There  is  a  good  many  settlers  on  their 
lands,"  wrote  Henry  Thompson  to  his  wife,  "that  will  prob 
ably  have  to  leave  —  mostly  proslavery."  65  This  prospect 
could  hardly  have  raised  the  Browns  in  the  esteem  of  these 
neighbors  and  their  sympathizers.  This  surveying  party  was, 
however,  one  of  those  experiences  in  Kansas  which  made 
Henry  Thompson  write  to  his  wife  a  month  later,  April  16, 
when  the  outlook  for  the  Free  State  had  grown  gloomy 
enough:  "  It  is  a  great  trial  to  me  to  stay  away  from  you,  but 


134  JOHN  BROWN 

I  am  here,  and  feel  I  have  a  sacrifice  to  make,  a  duty  to  per 
form.  Can  I  leave  that  undone  and  feel  easy,  and  have  a 
conscience  void  of  offence?  Should  I  ever  feel  that  I  had  not 
put  my  hand  to  the  plough  and  looked  back?"66  It  was 
not  only  the  cause  which  held  Mr.  Thompson  in  Kansas,  but 
his  very  great  regard  for  John  Brown.  Upon  Brown's  plans 
he  later  wrote  to  his  wife,  would  depend  his  own,  "until 
School  is  out."  67 

April  1 6  was  also  the  date  of  a  settlers'  meeting  of  momen 
tous  importance  to  Osawatomie.  It  attracted  widespread  at 
tention  elsewhere  in  the  Territory,  since  it  was  the  first  open 
defiance,  after  the  President's  proclamation,  by  any  body  of 
men,  of  the  Shawnee  Legislature's  laws.  The  call  for  the  gath 
ering  was  signed  by  twenty- three  citizens,  who  wished  to  con 
fer  as  to  the  proper  attitude  to  be  taken  toward  the  officials 
appointed  by  the  Shawnee  Legislature  to  assess  property  and 
collect  taxes.  Richard  Mendenhall  presided,  and  there  was 
full  discussion  of  the  situation.68  No  less  ominous  a  figure 
than  the  Rev.  Martin  White  presented  the  Border  Ruffian 
side.  The  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair,  brother-in-law  of  John  Brown, 
recorded  many  years  later  that  "Martin  White  stood  up  for 
the  laws,  and  charged  rebellion  and  treason  on  all  who  de 
clined  to  obey  them.  Captain  John  Brown  was  for  regarding 
the  Legislature  as  a  fraud  and  their  laws  as  a  farce  and  their 
slave  code  as  wicked,  and  if  an  attempt  was  made  to  enforce 
them  to  resist  it."  Martin  White  put  it  differently.  "I  went," 
he  declared  in  a  speech  to  the  Kansas  Legislature  in  Febru 
ary,  1857,  when  telling  of  his  experiences  with  the  Free  State 
men,  "to  one  of  their  meetings  and  tried  to  reason  with  them 
for  peace,  but  in  so  doing  I  insulted  the  hero  [John  Brown] 
of  the  murder  of  the  three  Doyles,  Wilkinson  and  Sherman, 
and  he  replied  to  me  and  said  that  he  was  an  'Abolitionist 
of  the  old  stock  —  was  dyed  in  the  wool  and  that  negroes 
were  his  brothers  and  equals  —  that  he  would  rather  see  this 
Union  dissolved  and  the  country  drenched  with  blood  than 
to  pay  taxes  to  the  amount  of  one-hundredth  part  of  a  mill.' " 
As  to  his  own  position,  Mr.  Adair  testified:  "I  had  said  but 
little.  But  the  question  was  put  directly:  was  I  ready  to  obey 
the  laws  or  to  take  up  arms  against  them?  I  replied  I  should 
not  regard  the  authority  of  those  laws,  yet  was  not  ready 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     135 

to  take  up  arms  against  them  but  was  ready  if  necessary  to 
suffer  penalties."  This  was  the  spirit  in  which  the  Free  Soil 
pioneers  were  meeting  the  situation  created  by  Pierce's  sid 
ing  with  the  pro-slavery  forces.  They  were  willing  to  "  suffer 
penalties"  for  their  beliefs  in  the  good  old  New  England 
fashion,  and  were  in  no  wise  to  be  swerved  from  their  sense  of 
duty  by  the  thundering  of  the  highest  authority  in  the  land. 
As  a  result  of  the  discussion  and  the  appointment  of  a  com 
mittee  of  five  to  prepare  them,  the  following  resolutions  were 
adopted  by  the  meeting: 

Resolved,  That  we  utterly  repudiate  the  authority  of  that  Legis 
lature  as  a  body,  emanating  not  from  the  people  of  Kansas,  but 
elected  and  forced  upon  us  by  a  foreign  vote,  and  that  the  officers 
appointed  by  the  same,  have  therefore  no  legal  power  to  act. 

Resolved,  That  we  pledge  to  one  another  mutual  support  and  aid 
in  a  forcible  resistance  to  any  attempt  to  compel  us  with  obedience 
to  those  enactments,  let  that  attempt  come  from  whatever  source  it 
may,  and  that  if  men  appointed  by  that  legislature  to  the  office  of 
Assessor  or  Sheriff,  shall  hereafter  attempt  to  assess  or  collect  taxes 
of  us,  they  will  do  so  at  the  peril  of  such  consequences  as  shall  be 
necessary  to  prevent  same. 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  appointed  to  inform  such 
officers  of  the  action  of  this  meeting  by  placing  in  their  hands  a  copy 
of  these  resolutions. 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  with  the  proceedings 
of  this  meeting  be  furnished  to  the  several  papers  of  Kansas  with 
a  request  to  publish  the  same. 

RICHARD  MENDENHALL,  Pres't.™ 

OSCAR  V.  DAYTON,  Sec'ry. 

One  cannot  but  admire  the  courage  which  prompted  this 
spreading  abroad  of  the  decision  of  the  meeting.  It  was,  how 
ever,  soon  to  have  dire  results  for  the  little  settlement  itself. 

About  this  same  time  there  had  come  to  a  neighboring  pro- 
slavery  settlement  of  the  Shermans,  one  of  whom  was  known 
as  "Dutch  Henry,"  a  Judge,  Sterling  G.  Cato,  to  hold  court 
in  the  name  of  the  bogus  Territorial  Legislature.  The  Browns 
soon  heard  that  he  had  issued  warrants  for  their  arrest, 
either  because  of  their  participation  in  the  meeting  of  April 
i6,or  because  of  prior  dislike  of  them  as  Abolitionists.  John 
Brown  sent  to  the  court  his  son  Salmon  and  Henry  Thompson, 
"to  see,"  so  Salmon  Brown  affirms,  "if  Cato  would  arrest  us. 
We  went  over  ten  miles  afoot  and  stood  around  to  see  if  they 


136  JOHN  BROWN 

would  carry  out  their  threat.  I  did  not  like  it.  I  did  not  want 
to  be  in  the  middle  of  a  rescue.  That's  a  risky  situation.  I 
thought  father  was  wild  to  send  us,  but  he  wanted  to  hurry  up 
the  fight — always."  70  This  ruse  having  failed,  Brown  himself 
went  with  his  armed  company  to  see  what  was  going  on.  The 
result  of  this  he  described  to  his  brother-in-law,  Adair: 

BROWN'S  STATION,  22d  April,  1856. 
DEAR  BROTHER  ADAIR:  — 

.  .  .  Yesterday  we  went  to  Dutch  Henrys  to  see  how  things  were 
going  at  Court,  my  boys  turned  out  to  train  at  a  house  near  by. 
Many  of  the  volunteer  Co.  went  in  without  show  of  arms  to  hear 
the  charge  to  Grand  Jury.  The  Court  is  thoroughly  Bogus  but  the 
Judge  had  not  the  nerve  to  avow  it  openly.  He  was  questioned  on 
the  bench  in  writing  civilly  but  plainly  whether  he  intended  to 
enforce  the  Bogus  Laws  or  not;  but  would  give  no  answer.  He  did 
not  even  mention  the  so  called  Kansas  Legislature  or  name  their 
acts  but  talked  of  our  laws ;  it  was  easy  for  any  one  conversant  with 
law  matters  to  discover  what  code  he  was  charging  the  jury  under. 
He  evidently  felt  much  agitated  but  talked  a  good  deal  about  hav 
ing  criminals  punished,  &c.  After  hearing  the  charge  and  witnessing 
the  refusal  of  the  Judge  to  answer,  the  volunteers  met  under  arms 
passed  the  Osawatomie  Preamble  &  Resolutions,  every  man  voting 
aye.  They  also  appointed  a  committee  of  Three  to  wait  on  the 
Judge  at  once  with  a  coppy  in  full;  which  was  immediately  done. 
The  effect  of  that  I  have  not  yet  learned.  You  will  see  that  matters 
are  in  a  fair  way  of  comeing  to  a  head. 

Yours  sincerely  in  haste, 

JOHN  BROWN  n 

James  Hanway,  a  leading  Free  State  settler,  has  recorded 
the  following  additional  details  of  this  occurrence: 

"John  Brown,  Jr.  left  the  court  room,  and  in  the  yard  he  called 
out  in  a  loud  voice:  'The  Pottawattomie  Rifle  Company  will  meet 
at  the  parade  ground,'  and  the  company  consisting  of  some  thirty 
men,  marched  off  to  meet  as  ordered.  There  was  not  a  disrespectful 
word  uttered,  nor  were  there  deadly  weapons  displayed  on  the  oc 
casion  —  there  were  doubtless  a  few  pocket  pistols,  but  they  were 
hid  from  sight.  Between  dark  and  daylight,  Judge  Cato  and  his 
officials  had  left;  they  journeyed  toward  Lecompton  in  Douglas 
County,  which  was  the  Bastile  of  the  proslavery  party.  This  was 
the  first  and  the  last  of  the  proslavery  court  holding  their  sessions 
in  this  section  of  the  country."  72 

*  This  incident,  Mr.  Hanway  added,  got  into  the  pro-slavery 
newspapers  in  a  magnified  and  distorted  form,  and  became 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     137 

a  standing  charge  against  the  Free  State  party  of  Kansas  as 
one  of  their  heinous  crimes,  for  Judge  Cato  portrayed  him 
self  thereafter  as  a  court  compelled  to  flee  for  safety. 

About  the  time  that  Judge  Cato's  court  was  in  session  at 
Dutch  Henry's,  there  arrived  in  the  neighborhood  a  com 
pany  of  Southerners  who  had  come  to  the  Territory  from 
Georgia,  Alabama  and  South  Carolina,  in  order  to  make  it 
a  slave  State.  John  Brown  lost  no  time  in  discovering  their 
objects,  and  he  did  it  in  a  manner  which  has  become  famous 
in  Kansas.  ''Father,"  says  Salmon  Brown,  "had  taken  advan 
tage  of  his  knowledge  of  surveying,  and,  as  a  surveyor,  ran  a 
line  through  their  camp.  He  had  been  surveying  the  old  In 
dian  lands,  previously,  for  the  Indians.  The  Border  Ruffians 
never  suspected  us  to  be  anything  but  friends,  for  only  pro- 
slavery  men  got  government  jobs  then,  and  surveyors  were 
supposed -to  be  government  officers.  So  they  talked  freely 
about  their  plans  and  one  big  fellow  said : '  We  came  up  here  for 
self  first  and  the  South  next.  But  one  thing  we  will  do  before 
we  leave,  we  '11  clear  out  the  damned  Brown  crowd.' "  73  This 
last  was  an  empty  boast,  as  time  showed.  But  the  arrival  of 
these  men  in  the  neighborhood  of  Osawatomie  was  but  an 
other  sign  of  the  impending  crisis.  They  were  part  of  the  force 
raised  by  Major  Jefferson  Buford  at  Eufaula,  Silver  Run  and 
Columbus,  Georgia,  and  Montgomery,  Alabama,  as  the  result 
of  an  appeal  for  Southern  emigrants  to  settle  in  Kansas.74 
The  organization  was  military,  but  the  men  went  unarmed  as 
far  as  Kansas  City,  where  they  arrived  between  four  and  five 
hundred  strong,  late  in  April.  On  May  2  they  passed  into  Kan 
sas  with  weapons  in  plenty,  scattering  for  a  time  in  search 
of  homes,  only  to  be  called  upon  in  short  order  as  a  military 
force.  But  before  this  came  to  pass,  they  had  added  greatly 
to  the  terror  of  the  Free  Soil  settlers  by  their  swashbuckling 
marches  through  the  Territory.  Just  as  they  left  Montgomery, 
Buford's  men  had  been  marched  to  the  bookstore  of  the 
Messrs.  Mcllvaine  in  that  city,  where  each  man  received  a 
Bible.  "But,"  says  a  correspondent  of  the  Tribune,  "on  the 
trip  up  the  river  [from  St.  Louis]  the  Bibles  were  thrown 
promiscuously  into  a  large  bucket  on  the  hurricane  deck,  and 
the  company  were  below  handling  an  article  known  among 
gamblers  as  a  'pocket  testament.'"  75  "The  people  of  West- 


138  JOHN  BROWN 

port  were  glad  to  see  Buford's  men  come;  they  were  doubly 
glad  when  they  went  away  finally,"  reported  an  old  citizen 
of  Westport,  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  they  got  out  of 
hand  soon  after  entering  Kansas,  for  as  settlers  they  were 
a  dismal  failure.  When  their  service  in  the  sack  of  Lawrence 
was  over,  after  pillaging  and  roaming  for  a  while,  they  gradu 
ally  began  to  return  to  the  South. 

Here  those  who  returned  afforded  fresh  proof  of  the  inabil 
ity  of  that  section  to  colonize  its  favorite  institution  as  far 
North  and  West  as  Kansas.  A  number  enlisted  in  the  United 
States  troops  in  Kansas,  while  others  went  over  to  the  Free 
State  men  and  thus  became  traitors  to  the  cause  of  human 
bondage.  Still  others  stayed  for  months  near  Westport,  a 
veritable  plague  to  their  friends.76  In  short,  the  expedition 
was  a  disastrous  failure  politically,  economically  and  finan 
cially;  it  served  no  other  purpose  than  to  aid  in  the  wanton 
destruction  of  part  of  the  city  of  Lawrence  and  the  throwing 
into  chains  of  the  Free  State  leaders. 

Beyond  doubt  the  arrival  of  Buford's  men  raised  high  the 
spirits  of  the  Southern  leaders,  who  fondly  believed  that  there 
would  now  be  sufficient  emigration  of  their  own  people  to 
offset  the  continuing  stream  of  arrivals  from  New  England, 
notably  a  remarkable  colony  from  New  Haven,  one  hundred 
strong,  who  settled  sixty-five  miles  above  Lawrence  on  the 
Kansas  River  and,  unlike  Buford's  men,  knew  how  to  plough 
and  plant.  "Our  town,"  wrote  a  correspondent  of  the  Trib 
une  from  Lawrence  on  April  19,  "is  crowded  with  immigrants 
from  all  parts.  A  number  of  companies  are  camping  here, 
anxiously  awaiting  their  exploring  committees,  who  have 
gone  out  to  look  at  different  localities.  There  is  a  large  com 
pany  from  Ohio  —  one  from  Connecticut  —  one  from  New 
Hampshire,  and  others  are  daily  arriving.  .  .  .  The  emi 
grants  of  this  season  are  much  superior  to  those  of  last  year. 
They  come  in  the  face  of  difficulties  and  are  prepared  to  meet 
them."  77  But  fears  of  a  similar  tide  of  Southerners  impelled 
Horace  Greeley  to  impassioned  editorials  urging  the  youth 
of  the  Northeast  to  save  Kansas,  by  force  of  arms  and  de 
votion  to  principle.78  A  correspondent  of  the  Albany  Journal, 
writing  on  March  16  from  a  steamboat  on  the  Mississippi, 
gave  this  picture  of  the  outlook: 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     139 

"I  have  just  come  up  from  Tennessee  and  let  me  assure  you  that 
the  South  are  now  moving  in  earnest  in  sending  settlers  to  Kansas. 
I  heard  a  letter  from  Kansas  .  .  .  read  at  a  Kansas  meeting,  in 
which  the  South  were  (sic)  urged  to  send  their  men  immediately. 
'The  only  hope,'  the  writer  stated,  was  in  sending  on  enough  to 
whip  the  d — d  Abolitionists  before  the  1st  of  July,  or  the  Territory 
would  be  lost.  The  writer  says:  'There  are  now  at  least  three  Abo 
litionists  to  one  friend  of  the  South,  and  if  anything  is  done  it  must 
be  done  quickly.'" 

A  Tribune  correspondent  in  Kansas  City  wrote  late  in  April 
that:  "It  is  unquestionable  that  the  South  has  gone  into  the 
'  actual  settlement '  business  to  a  great  extent  this  Spring." 79 
Horace  Greeley  himself  wrote  to  his  newspaper  from  Wash 
ington  on  March  I : 

"The  Free-State  men  of  Kansas  now  in  this  city  have  letters  from 
various  points  in  that  embryo  State  down  to  the  i8th  and  iQth  ult. 
Their  general  tone  implies  apprehension  that  a  bloody  collision  is 
imminent.  The  Border  Ruffians  have  been  raised  entirely  off  their 
feet  by  Pierce's  extraordinary  Messages,  which  they  regard  as  a  com 
plete  endorsement  of  all  their  past  outrages  and  an  incitement  to 
persevere  in  their  diabolical  work.  It  is  believed  by  our  friends  that 
the  organization  of  the  State  Government  at  Topeka  the  coming 
week  will  be  made  the  pretext  for  a  raid,  and  if  possible  a  butchery, 
at  the  hands  of  the  Slavery  party.  .  .  ."80 

It  was  only  in  the  time  set  that  this  prognostication  was 
wrong.  But  meanwhile,  as  James  Redpath  has  recorded, 
the  acts  of  the  Washington  allies  of  Atchison,  Stringfellow 
and  Jones  were  daily  making  of  the  Free  State  pioneers  more 
and  more  ardent  advocates  of  freedom,  and  unifying  them  in 
their  determination  to  resist  to  the  last  the  pro-slavery  ag 
gressions  : 

"I  have  heard  men  who  were  semi-Southerners  before,  declare 
with  Garrison: 

"'I  am  an  Abolitionist! 

I  glory  in  the  name ! '  — 

since  Kansas  was  invaded.  I  have  heard  others  hint  that  even 
Garrison  himself  was  rather  an  old  fogy,  because  he  does  not  go  far 
enough  in  opposition  to  Slavery.  'The  world  does  move.' "  81 

In  April  the  pro-slavery  net  began  to  tighten  around  Law 
rence.  Sheriff  Jones  had  reappeared  there  on  April  19,  1856, 
to  vex  anew  its  citizens.  He  had  decided  that  it  was  time  for 


140  JOHN  BROWN 

him  to  attempt  again  the  arrest  of  those  persons  who  five 
months  previously  had  taken  from  him  his  prisoner  Branson. 
Jones's  thumbs  had  begun  to  itch  for  S.  N.  Wood,  the  leader 
of  the  rescuers;  he  was,  therefore,  quite  willing  to  take  Rob 
inson  and  Lane  at  their  word,  that  they  would  not  resist  the 
enforcement  of  a  writ  by  proper  authority,  and  quite  ready 
to  take  a  chance  —  if  he  did  not  court  it  —  of  again  em 
broiling  the  citizens  of  Lawrence  with  the  Territorial  authori 
ties.  Jones  easily  found  Wood  and  arrested  him,  but  in  the 
crowd  which  speedily  gathered  he  lost  his  prisoner.82  Jones 
reappeared  the  next  day  and  called  on  the  citizens  to  help 
him  serve  the  four  warrants  he  had  in  his  hands.  The  crowd 
refused,  saying,  'Take  the  muster  roll,  Jones,  we  all  resist.'  83 
Jones  then  personally  laid  hands  on  Samuel  F.  Tappan,  who 
thereupon  struck  the  sheriff  in  the  face.  This  was  sufficient 
resistance  to  satisfy  the  sheriff,  who  forthwith  left,  returning 
three  days  later,  on  April  23,  with  First  Lieutenant  James  Mc- 
Intosh,  of  the  First  Cavalry,  and  ten  troopers.  With  the  aid 
of  these  regulars  he  arrested  six  citizens  on  the  extraordi 
nary  charge  of  contempt  of  court,  in  that  they  had  declined  to 
aid  him  in  serving  his  warrants,  —  an  unheard-of  form  of  the 
crime  of  disrespect  to  the  judiciary.  His  prisoners  were  put 
in  a  tent  to  await  the  pleasure  of  their  captor.  That  evening, 
while  Jones  was  sitting  in  his  tent,  with  his  shadow  outlined 
against  it  by  the  light  within,  he  was  shot  from  without  and 
gravely  wounded  by  James  N.  Filer,84  a  young  New  Yorker, 
though  the  blame  long  rested  on  Charles  Lenhart,  a  printer, 
subsequently  prominent  in  the  attempt  to  rescue  Brown 
from  his  Virginia  prison.  Lenhart  was  undoubtedly  outside 
the  tent  when  Jones  was  shot,  and  as  he  was  a  reckless  fellow, 
suspicion  not  unnaturally  fell  upon  him. 

Nothing  more  unfortunate  could  have  happened  for  the 
citizens  of  Lawrence  than  the  shooting  of  Jones,  even  though 
his  life  was  spared,  for  the  pro-slavery  newspapers  at  once 
announced  his  death,  and  called  upon  their  readers  to  avenge 
his  murder.  None  of  the  regrets  that  the  citizens  of  Law 
rence  expressed  could  undo  the  injury  inflicted  by  Filer's 
shot.  They  held  a  mass  meeting  on  April  24,  addressed  by 
Reeder,  Robinson,  Grosvenor  P.  Lowry  and  others,  who  con 
demned  the  crime  in  proper  terms  as  cowardly  and  dastardly.81 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     141 

But  their  expressions  went  for  naught.  It  was  precisely  the 
overt  act  needed  to  give  Jones  and  his  men  the  appear 
ance  of  being  hindered  in  the  performance  of  their  duty,  and 
assaulted  because  of  their  devotion  to  it.  The  scene  of  the 
shooting  —  Lawrence  —  was  particularly  satisfactory  to  the 
pro-slavery  party,  since  it  enabled  them  to  concentrate  anew 
their  enmity  upon  that  hated  town.  "We  are  now  in  favor 
of  levelling  Lawrence  and  chastising  the  Traitors  there  con 
gregated,  should  it  result  in  total  destruction  of  the  Union," 
declared  the  Squatter  Sovereign  on  April  29,  1856.  A  week 
later,  May  6,  still  keeping  alive  the  falsehood  of  Jones's 
death,  it  thus  incited  to  murder: 

"When  a  proslavery  man  gets  into  a  difficulty  with  an  Abolition 
ist  let  him  think  of  the  murdered  Jones  and  Clark,  and  govern  him 
self  accordingly.  In  a  fight,  let  our  motto  be,  'War  to  the  knife, 
and  knife  to  the  hilt;'  asking  no  quarters  from  them  and  granting 
none.  Jones'  Murder  Must  Be  Revenged  1 1 " 

Appeals  like  this  speedily  bore  fruit.  On  the  next  day, 
J.  N.  Mace,  a  Free  State  settler,  who  had  testified  before  the 
Howard  Committee  then  sitting  at  Lawrence,  was  shot  in  the 
leg  by  two  men,  who,  thinking  him  dead,  went  off,  rejoicing 
in  his  hearing  that  there  was  "more  abolition  bait  for  the 
wolves."  86  At  an  indignation  meeting  held  in  Lawrence  on 
May  2  to  consider  Mace's  case,  Governor  Robinson  again 
soothed  the  perturbed  feelings  of  the  multitude,  urged  his 
listeners  to  go  on  making  laws  of  their  own,  but  not  to  give 
way  to  any  spirit  of  revenge,  and  deprecated  the  attack  upon 
Sheriff  Jones  as  cowardly  and  base.87  April  30  had  been  a 
fateful  day  for  the  Rev.  Pardee  Butler,  who,  undeterred  by 
his  being  sent  down  the  Missouri  on  a  raft  by  his  neighbors, 
returned  then  to  Atchison.  He  was  immediately  stripped  and 
cottoned  (for  lack  of  feathers),  turned  loose  on  the  prairie, 
and  a  committee  of  three  was  appointed  to  hang  him  the 
next  time  he  came  to  Atchison.  His  sole  offence,  according 
to  his  own  testimony,  was  his  telling  the  Squatter  Sovereign 
that  he  was  a  Free  Soiler  and  meant  to  vote  accordingly.88 
On  May  19  there  fell,  shot  in  the  back  near  Blanton's 
Bridge,  John  Jones,  who,  according  to  the  existing  evidence, 
gave  up  his  life  merely  because  he,  a  boy  of  twenty,  was 


142  JOHN  BROWN 

accused  of  being  an  Abolitionist.89  Three  young  men,  Charles 
Lenhart,  John  Stewart  and  John  E.  Cook  (who  subsequently 
died  on  a  Virginia  gibbet,  after  John  Brown),  rode  out  toward 
the  scene  of  this  crime  as  soon  as  it  was  reported.  On  their 
way  to  Blanton's  Bridge  they  fell  in  with  several  Missourians, 
who  subsequently  testified  that  they  were  fired  upon  first  and 
one  of  them  wounded ;  that  in  self-defence  they  shot  and  killed 
Stewart.  Lenhart  and  Cook  stated  that  Stewart  hailed  the 
Missourians  by  asking  them  where  they  were  going.  Their 
reply  was  a  shot  and  Stewart  fell  dead.  The  Free  State  men 
with  him  were  convinced  that  Coleman,  the  murderer  of  Dow, 
had  in  this  case  also  fired  the  fatal  shot.90 

Judge  Lecompte  next  stirred  up  the  Territory  in  behalf  of 
the  pro-slavery  cause  by  charging  the  grand  jury  in  session  at 
Lecompton  during  the  second  week  in  May  that  all  the  laws 
passed  by  the  Shawnee  Legislature  were  of  United  States 
authority  and  making;  that,  therefore,  all  who  "resist  these 
laws,  resist  the  power  and  authority  of  the  United  States; 
and  are  therefore,  guilty  of  high  treason."  *  "If,"  he  con 
tinued,  laying  down  a  principle  new  in  American  judicial 
procedure,  "you  find  that  no  such  resistance  has  been  made, 
but  that  combinations  have  been  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
resisting  them,  and  that  individuals  of  influence  and  notori 
ety  have  been  aiding  and  abetting  in  such  combinations,  then 
must  you  find  bills  for  constructive  treason.'"  At  once,  with 
out  hearing  any  witnesses,  the  grand  jury  indicted  Reeder, 
Robinson,  Lane,  George  W.  Brown,  George  W.  Deitzler, 
Samuel  N.  Wood,  Gaius  Jenkins  and  George  W.  Smith  on  the 
charge  of  treason.91  It  is  in  keeping  with  this  performance  that 
Governor  Robinson,  who,  with  his  wife,  had  left  Lawrence  at 
its  most  critical  moment,  in  order  to  lay  the  true  situation  be 
fore  the  friends  of  Free  Kansas  in  the  East,  should  have  been 
taken  from  the  steamer  Star  of  the  West  at  Lexington,  Mis 
souri,  on  May  10,  on  the  charge  of  fleeing  from  an  indict 
ment,  when  that  indictment  was  not  reported  by  the  jury  until 

*  "Section  3,  Article  3,  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says:  "Trea 
son  against  the  United  States  shall  consist  only  in  levying  War  against  them,  or 
in  adhering  to  their  Enemies,  giving  them  Aid  and  Comfort.  No  person  shall 
be  convicted  of  Treason  unless  on  the  Testimony  of  two  witnesses  to  the  same 
overt  act,  or  on  Confession  in  open  Court." 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    143 

a  week  after  his  detention.92  Better  evidence  of  the  way  the 
whole  machinery  of  justice  was  being  prostituted  to  pro- 
slavery  ends  could  hardly  be  produced ;  it  resulted  in  Robin 
son's  being  taken  to  Leavenworth,  where  he  remained  until 
his  release  on  bail  of  five  thousand  dollars,  on  September  10, 
after  four  months'  confinement.  Ex-Governor  Reeder  escaped 
from  Kansas  in  disguise,  after  having  claimed  protection  in 
vain  as  a  witness  before  the  Howard  Committee,  and  having 
told  the  United  States  deputy  marshal  that  any  attempt  to 
take  him  prisoner  would  be  attended  with  serious  results.93 
Lane  escaped  Robinson's  fate  only  by  happening  to  be  in 
Indiana  on  a  visit.  The  Free  Soil  movement  was  thus  deprived 
of  its  leaders.  But  the  complaisant  Lecompton  grand  jury 
was  not  content  with  indictment  for  treason;  it  took  the  still 
more  extraordinary  course  of  recommending  the  abatement 
as  nuisances  of  the  Lawrence  Free  Soil  newspapers,  The 
Herald  of  Freedom  and  The  Kansas  Free  State.  Charging  that 
the  Free  State  Hotel  in  Lawrence  had  been  built  for  use  as  a 
fortress  as  well  as  a  caravansary,  the  jurors  expressed  their 
opinion  that  its  demolition  was  desirable. 

Ex-Governor  Reeder's  refusal  to  submit  to  arrest  was  a 
greatly  desired  opportunity  to  another  Jones,  the  United 
States  marshal  for  Kansas  Territory,  I.  B.  Donaldson.  He  at 
once  issued  (on  May  n)  the  following  proclamation: 

To  The  People  of  Kansas  Territory : 

Whereas,  certain  judicial  writs  of  arrest  have  been  directed  to  me 
by  the  First  District  Court  of  the  United  Statestetc.,  to  be  executed 
within  the  county  of  Douglas;  and,  whereas,  an  attempt  to  execute 
them  by  the  United  States  Deputy  Marshal  was  violently  resisted 
by  a  large  number  of  citizens  of  Lawrence;  and  as  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  any  attempt  to  execute  these  writs  will  be 
resisted  by  a  large  body  of  armed  men: 

Now,  therefore,  the  law-abiding  citizens  of  the  Territory  are  com 
manded  to  be  and  appear  at  Lecompton  as  soon  as  practicable,  and 
in  numbers  sufficient  for  the  proper  execution  of  the  law.94 

Like  Sheriff  Jones,  Donaldson  believed  most  of  the  law- 
abiding  citizens  of  Kansas  lived  in  Missouri,  for  his  proclama 
tion  went  first  to  the  border  towns  and  to  Leavenworth  and 
Atchison,  the  strongest  pro-slavery  settlements  in  Kansas.96 
Before  the  proclamation  was  known  to  the  Free  Soil  settlers, 


144  JOHN  BROWN 

the  Border  Ruffians  had  begun  to  assemble  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Lawrence,  stopping  travellers,  patrolling  the  roads, 
even  pillaging,  as  if  they  were  a  conquering  army,  and  gener 
ally  in  high  feather,  for  this  time  they  felt  certain  of  their 
prey,  since  it  had  been  officially  delivered  over  to  them.  The 
United  States  Court  had  issued  the  warrants;  the  United 
States  marshal  had  called  out  them  instead  of  the  United 
States  troops,  who,  after  their  visit  in  numbers  to  Lawrence 
under  Colonel  Sumner  upon  the  shooting  of  Jones,  had  been 
allowed  to  return  to  their  garrisons.  In  the  Wakarusa  "  war," 
Shannon,  not  having  power  over  the  regulars,  called  eagerly 
for  their  aid ;  now  that  they  were  at  his  disposal,  he  refused  to 
send  them  to  Lawrence  for  the  protection  of  its  citizens,  as 
the  latter  implored  him  to,  or  to  urge  Donaldson  to  use  them 
as  his  posse.*  Whereas  in  the  previous  December  Governor 
Shannon  had  been  willing  to  keep  the  peace,  and  eager  to 
arrive  at  a  compromise,  he  was  ready  now  to  have  the  tables 
turned  upon  those  who  had  tricked  him  when  in  his  cups, 
well  knowing  what  the  outcome  would  be.  "But  so  long,"  he 
wrote  to  the  Lawrence  committee  which  begged  protection  of 
him,  "as  they  [the  citizens  of  Lawrence]  keep  up  a  military 
or  armed  organization  to  resist  Territorial  laws  and  the  offi 
cers  charged  with  their  execution,  I  shall  not  interpose  to 
save  them  from  the  legitimate  consequences  of  their  illegal 
acts."96 

It  was  the  van  of  Donaldson's  forces  which  killed  Stewart 
and  Jones.  His  band  comprised,  first,  Buford's  newly  arrived 
men,  whom  their  leader  hastily  called  together  from  their  easy 
going  search  for  home-sites,  four  hundred  in  all  responding. 
They  represented  in  Donaldson's  eyes,  after  being  nineteen 
days  in  Kansas,  the  "law-abiding  citizens  of  the  Territory." 
General  David  R.  Atchison,  of  Missouri,  headed  a  Missouri 
company,  the  Platte  County  Riflemen,  with  two  pieces 
of  artillery;  while  the  Kickapoo  Rangers,  who  had  hacked 
Captain  R.  P.  Brown  to  death,  and  other  Kansas  pro-slavery 
companies  eagerly  joined  the  forces.97  Both  the  Stringfellows 

*  When  President  Pierce  heard  of  Donaldson's  plans,  he  was  much  worried, 
and  telegraphed  to  Shannon  suggesting  that  the  United  States  troops  be  used, 
and  then  only  after  the  marshal  had  met  with  actual  resistance.  The  telegram 
came  too  late  to  be  of  avail.  See  Kansas  Historical  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  414. 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS    145 

were  there,  ready  to  be  in  at  the  death,  and  hoping  that  this 
meant  the  extermination  of  the  hated  Abolitionists.  About 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  in  all,  this  "swearing,  whiskey- 
drinking,  ruffianly  horde,"98  who  were  there  to  uphold  the 
majesty  of  the  law,  appeared  near  Lawrence  on  May  21, 
after  a  committee  from  there  had  vainly  tried  to  induce 
Marshal  Donaldson  to  agree  to  a  compromise  by  which  the 
town  should  be  surrendered  to  Colonel  Sumner  and  his  cav 
alry  regiment,  to  be  held  until  the  writs  were  served."  But 
the  serving  of  the  warrants  was  not  Donaldson's  real  purpose, 
nor  that  of  the  men  associated  with  him.  The  deputy  mar 
shal,  Fain,  made  two  arrests  in  Lawrence  without  difficulty 
or  resistance,  on  the  evening  of  May  2O.100  Accompanied  by 
ten  unarmed  men,  he  returned  at  eleven  o'clock  the  next 
morning  and  summoned  five  citizens  of  Lawrence  to  join  his 
posse ;  they  did  so,  and  he  then  arrested  George  W .  Deitzler, 
George  W.  Smith  and  Gaius  Jenkins  on  the  charge  of  treason. 
They  submitted  cheerfully.  While  Fain  was  at  the  Free  State 
Hotel,  he  received  a  communication  from  the  eight  citizens 
of  Lawrence  who  were  acting  as  a  committee  of  public  safety. 
This  committee,  speaking  for  the  entire  town,  acknowledged 
the  " constituted  authorities  of  the  Government,"  and  stated 
that  they  would  "make  no  resistance  to  the  execution  of  the 
law  National  or  Territorial."  This  submission  was  in  vain. 
Fain,  having  his  prisoners  in  hand,  announced  to  the  Bor 
der  Ruffians  that  he  had  peacefully  accomplished  his  purpose, 
but  added  that  Sheriff  Jones  had  writs  yet  to  be  served,  and 
that  they  could  act  as  his  posse  if  they  desired. 

With  the  utmost  alacrity  the  invitation  was  accepted,  but 
no  pretence  of  serving  any  writs  was  made.  The  Southerners 
were  stimulated  by  the  oratory  of  Atchison,  but  recently 
presiding  officer  of  the  United  States  Senate,  who  declared 
among  other  things:  "And  now  we  will  go  in  with  our  highly 
honorable  Jones,  and  test  the  strength  of  that  damned  Free 
State  Hotel.  Be  brave,  be  orderly,  and  if  any  man  or  woman 
stand  in  your  way,  blow  them  to  hell  with  a  chunk  of  cold 
lead."  But  they  did  not  go  in  until  the  Free  State  men 
had  surrendered  their  arms  to  Jones,  as  further  evidence  of 
good  faith.  Once  in,  there  was  no  John  Brown  to  counsel 
resistance  to  them,  no  Lane  to  lead,  and  no  Robinson  to  tem- 


146  JOHN  BROWN 

porize.  There  was  no  real  leader.  The  military  company, 
the  Stubbs,  was  not  in  evidence.  There  were  only  two  hun 
dred  rifles  and  ten  kegs  of  powder  in  all  Lawrence.  Many  of 
the  citizens  were  either  in  arrest  or  in  hiding  to  escape  capture. 
Many  others  had  left  town  to  save  their  families.  So  no  de 
fence  was  attempted  when  the  two  newspaper  offices  were 
destroyed  and  the  types,  papers,  presses  and  books  thrown 
into  the  river.  The  Free  State  Hotel  remained,  however, 
and  the  order  of  the  court  that  it  be  "abated"  was  not  yet 
enforced.  Here  Major  Buford  again  protested  that  he  had 
not  come  to  Kansas  to  destroy  property,  and  Atchison  seems 
to  have  been  sobered  some.  But  Jones  wanted  his  triumph 
complete,  and  the  Free  State  Hotel  was  soon  in  flames,  after 
the  pro-slavery  cannon  had  sent  thirty- two  shot  into  it, 
Atchison  firing  the  first  shot.101  "This,"  said  Jones,  "is  the 
happiest  moment  of  my  life."  As  the  walls  of  the  hotel  fell, 
he  cried  out  in  glee,  "I  have  done  it,  by  God,  I  have  done 
it,"  102  and  it  in  no  wise  troubled  him  that,  when  he  dismissed 
his  drunken  posse,  as  the  hotel  lay  in  ruins,  it  promptly  robbed 
the  town,  winding  up  by  the  burning  of  Governor  Robinson's 
house.  The  majesty  of  the  law  was  upheld;  its  flouting  by 
Free  Soilers  avenged. 

The  pro-slavery  leaders  and  their  disbanded  followers  left 
the  Territory  exulting  in  their  victory,  and  wholly  unable  to 
realize  that  it  was  not  only  to  be  their  defeat,  but  that  they 
had  let  loose  a  veritable  Pandora's  box  of  evil  passions,  and 
finally  inaugurated  a  reign  of  bloodshed,  midnight  assassina 
tion  and  guerrilla  warfare.  Besides,  they  had  aroused  the 
whole  North  to  fresh  anger  by  the  destruction  of  Lawrence, 
at  first  reported  to  have  been  accompanied  by  heavy  loss  of 
life.  The  inscriptions  on  their  banners,  "Southern  Rights" 
and  "South  Carolina"  and 

"Let  Yankees  tremble,  abolitionists  fall, 
Our  Motto  is,  Give  Southern  rights  to  all," 103 

alone  brought  dozens  of  recruits  to  the  Free  State  cause. 
"From  this  time  no  further  effort  was  required  to  raise 
colonies.  They  raised  themselves,"  records  Eli  Thayer,  the 
Worcester,  Massachusetts,  organizer  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  So 
cieties.104  The  raiding  of  Lawrence  put  an  arsenal  of  argu- 


THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY  GUARDS     147 

ments  into  the  hands  of  the  new-born  Republican  party,  and 
fastened  the  nation's  attention  on  the  Territory.  On  the 
day  of  the  raid,  Horace  Greeley  declared  that  the  "bloody 
collision  in  Kansas,"  which  seemed  to  him  "almost  inevitable," 
would  "hardly  fail  to  shake  the  Union  to  its  center."  105 


CHAPTER  V 
MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE 

To  his  "Dear  Wife  and  Children  Every  One,"  wrote  John 
Brown,  "near  Brown's  Station,  K.  T.,  June,  1856,"  as  fol 
lows:  1 

"  It  is  now  about  five  weeks  since  I  have  seen  a  line  from  North 

Elba,  or  had  any  chance  of  writing  you.    During  that  period  we 

here  have  passed  through  an  almost  constant  series  of  very  trying 

events.    We  were  called  to  go  to  the  relief  of  Lawrence,  May  22, 

and  every  man  (eight  in  all)  except  Orson  [Day],  turned  out;  he 

staying  with  the  women  and  children,  and  to  take  care  of  the  cattle. 

John  was  captain  of  a  company  to  which  Jason  belonged ;  the  other 

six  were  a  little  company  by  ourselves.    On  our  way  to  Lawrence 

we  learned  that  it  had  been  already  destroyed,  and  we  encamped 

with  John's  company  over  night.   Next  day  our  little  company  left, 

and  during  the  day  we  stopped  and  searched  three  men.  .  .  .  On 

/the  second  day  and  evening  after  we  left  John's  men  we  encountered 

/  quite  a  number  of  proslavery  men,  and  took  quite  a  number  of  pris- 

/  oners.  Our  prisoners  we  let  go ;  but  we  kept  some  four  or  five  horses. 

/!  We  were  immediately  after  this  accused  of  murdering  five  men  at 

(/  Pottawatomie,  and  great  efforts  have  since  been  made  by  the  Mis- 

sourians  and  their  ruffian  allies  to  capture  us.  John's  company  soon 

afterward  disbanded,  and  also  the  Osawatomie  men." 

In  this  brief,  equivocal  fashion  John  Brown  reported  to  the 
absent  members  of  his  family  that  event  in  his  life  which  made 
him  most  famous  in  Kansas  and  has  caused  more  discussion 
than  any  other  single  event  in  the  history  of  Kansas  Territory. 
Upon  the  degree  of  criminality,  if  any,  which  should  attach 
to  John  Brown  for  his  part  in  the  proceedings,  the  debate 
in  Kansas  to-day  is  almost  as  bitter  as  at  the  time  of  the 
crime,  or  when  Brown's  tragic  end  kindled  the  Kansas  inter 
est  in  it  anew.  As  one  views  Brown's  conduct  in  the  killing  of 
the  five  pro-slavery  men  on  Pottawatomie  Creek  depends  to  a 
large  degree  the  place  which  may  be  assigned  to  him  in  history. 
Certainly,  without  a  clear  appreciation  of  what  happened  on 
the  night  of  the  24th  to  the  25th  of  May,  1856,  a  true  under 
standing  of  Brown,  the  man,  cannot  be  reached.  The  actual 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         149 

details  have  been  veiled  for  nearly  half  a  century  in  a  mystery 
which  the  confessions  of  one  of  the  party  only  partially  dis 
pelled.  Fortunately  for  the  truth  of  history,  there  are  two  other\ 
participants,  Henry  Thompson  and  Salmon  Brown,  still  sur-  J 
viving  after  this  long  stretch  of  time,  who  have  now  set  forth  / 
what  happened.   There  are  also  many  narratives  of  con  temper 
rary  witnesses  available  which,  when  weighed  together,  make 
possible  not  only  a  real  knowledge  of  the  conditions  prece 
dent  to  the  Pottawatomie  massacre,  but  of  its  effects  upon 
the  Free  Soil  cause. 

John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  engaged  in  planting  corn  when  the 
messenger  from  Lawrence  arrived.  "Without  delay,"  he  re 
corded  in  a  defence  of  his  father,2  "I  rode  to  Osawatomie 
with  the  word  and  then  rallied  the  men  of  my  company  whose 
homes  were  mostly  on  Pottawatomie  and  Middle  Creeks.'* 
His  first  lieutenant,  Henry  H.  Williams,  assisted  him  in  this 
work,  and  by  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  thirty-four  armed 
men  met  at  the  rendezvous,  the  junction  of  the  Osawatomie 
and  California  roads.  "The  'Marion  Rifles'  and  'Pomeroy 
Guards'  from  Osawatomie,"  narrated  Williams,3  in  what  is 
truly  most  valuable  contemporary  testimony,  since  it  was 
written  only  two  months  after  the  event,  while  Williams  was 
still  a  prisoner  at  Leavenworth,  "had  promised  to  meet  us 
here  by  agreement,  but  only  two  men  came,  who  reported 
that  another  messenger  from  Lawrence  had  arrived  and  con 
tradicted  the  former  report,  and  that,  therefore,  the  Osawato 
mie  companies  would  await  further  orders.  The  Pottawato- 
mies,  however,  agreed  to  push  on  to  Lawrence  and  ascertain 
the  facts  for  themselves.  Accordingly  we  moved  on,  and  two 
miles  from  the  Meridezene  [Marais  des  Cygnes]  we  met  a  mes 
senger  from  near  Lawrence  who  reported  that  the  Border 
Ruffians  had  taken  the  town  without  any  resistance  and  were 
razing  it  to  the  ground.  This  startling  news  was  received  in 
silence  by  the  company.  Then  the  word  '  onward '  was  passed 
along  the  line  and  although  scarcely  a  word  was  spoken  the 
thoughts  of  every  one  could  be  read  in  his  countenance.  We 
pushed  on,  and  a  messenger  was  dispatched  to  arouse  the 
settlers  at  Osawatomie.  At  Prairie  City  we  learned  that  there 
was  no  organized  Free  State  force  in  Lawrence  and  that  the 
1  Border  Ruffians '  were  in  possession  of  Blan ton's  Bridge, 


150  JOHN  BROWN 

and  had  assembled  in  force  at  Lecompton.  We  concluded 
to  encamp  at  Prairie  City  and  await  reinforcements." 

At  this  camp  the  company  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Lieuten 
ant  H.  H.  Williams  remained  until  the  next  day,  the  23d.  Cap 
tain  Shore  and  his  Osawatomie  company,  together  with  the 
"Pomeroy  Guards,"  joined  the  camp,  bringing  details  of  the 
sack  of  Lawrence  and  also  the  news  that  a  force  of  four  hun 
dred  men  under  Buford  was  in  camp  a  few  miles  to  the  east.4 
That  evening,  hearing  that  Governor  Robinson  was  being 
taken,  a  prisoner,  from  Westport  to  Lecompton,  guarded  by 
Border  Ruffians,  the  three  companies  moved  to  Palmyra  (now 
the  prosperous  town  of  Baldwin),  then  a  little  near-by  settle 
ment,  twelve  miles  from  Lawrence,  in  order  that  they  might 
rescue  the  Free  State  leader  if  he  were  brought  that  way  over 
the  Santa  Fe  trail.5  In  their  new  camp  they  were  joined  by  the 
Marion  Rifles,  Captain  Updegraff .  On  the  24th,  Captain  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  went  with  a  scouting  party  into  Lawrence  to  view 
the  ruins.6  His  report  and  that  of  his  men,  that  the  citizens 
of  that  ill-fated  town  had  not  united  in  defending  themselves 
against  the  common  enemy,  made  the  four  companies  at 
Palmyra  decide  they  could  not  fight  Lawrence's  battles  alone. 
"Accordingly,"  wrote  Mr.  Williams,  " we  broke  up  our  camp, 
each  company  returning  to  its  respective  locality,  the  men 
dispersing  to  their  homes."  This  homeward  movement  was 
hastened  by  the  arrival  of  thirteen  soldiers  of  the  First  Cav 
alry  under  Second  Lieutenant  John  R.  Church,  a  young  West 
Pointer,  whose  official  report  of  the  meeting,  dated  May  26, 
1856,  has  fortunately  been  preserved.  Lieutenant  Church, 
after  a  long  talk  with  John  Brown,  Jr.,  ordered  him  to  dis 
band  the  camp  in  compliance  with  his  (Church's)  orders  to 
disperse  all  armed  bodies  he  encountered,  whether  pro-slavery 
or  Free  Soil.7 

Curiously  enough,  the  Pottawatomies  returned  to  their 
homes  the  next  day  under  the  command  of  a  new  captain, 
Henry  H.  Williams,  having  deposed  John  Brown,  Jr.,  on  his 
way  back  from  Lawrence,  because  he  had  freed  two  slaves.8 
"The  arrival  of  those  slaves  in  camp  next  morning  caused  a 
commotion,"  so  their  liberator  has  recorded.  "The  act  of  free 
ing  them,  though  attended  by  no  violence  or  bloodshed,  was 
freely  denounced,  and  in  accordance  with  a  vote  given  by  a 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         151 

large  majority  of  the  men,  those  freed  persons,  in  opposition  to 
my  expressed  will,  were  returned  to  their  master.  The  driver 
of  the  team  which  carried  them  overtaking  him  on  his  way 
to  Westport,  received  a  side-saddle  as  his  reward."  There 
was  still  another  reason  why  the  men  of  John  Brown,  Jr.'s 
company  chose  a  new  captain.  On  this  same  day,  when  the 
company  was  near  Ottawa  Creek  on  its  return,  a  rider  came 
tearing  into  camp  —  his  horse  panting  and  lathered  with 
foam  —  and  without  dismounting  yelled  out:  "Five  men  have 
been  killed  on  Pottawatomie  Creek,  butchered  and  most 
brutally  mangled,  and  old  John  Brown  has  done  it!"  — 
thus  Jason  Brown  records  it.  "This  information,"  he  states, 
"caused  great  excitement  and  fear  among  the  men  of  our  com 
pany  and  a  feeling  arose  against  John  and  myself  which  led 
the  men  all  to  desert  us."  9 

As  John  Brown  himself  wrote  to  his  family,  he  and  a  small 
party  left  his  son's  company  the  morning  after  their  long 
night  tramp  to  Prairie  City,  on  Friday,  May  23.  The  cir 
cumstances  leading  up  to  his  departure  are  thus  set  forth  by 
Jason  Brown: 

"Father  cooked  for  our  company.  While  he  was  cooking  break 
fast,  I  heard  him,  Townsley  and  Weiner  talking  together.  I  heard 
Townsleysay:  'We  expect  to  be  butchered,  every  Free  State  set 
tler  in  our  region,'  and  Townsley  pleaded  that  help  should  be  sent. 
I  heard  their  talk  only  in  fragments.  Then  I  heard  father  say  to 
Weiner:  'Now  something  must  be  done.  W7e  have  got  to  defend  our 
families  and  our  neighbors  as  best  we  can.  Something  is  going  to 
be  done  now.  We  must  show  by  actual  work  that  there  are  two  sides 
to  this  thing  and  that  they  cannot  go  on  with  impunity.'"  10 

Weiner  also  told  Martin  Van  Buren  Jackson,  in  the  camp, 
"that  he,  his  man  Benjamin  and  also  Bondi,  had  been  insulted, 
abused  and  ordered  to  leave  the  county  within  three  days,  by 
the  Shermans  and  other  pro-slavery  parties  living  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Dutch  Henry's  Crossing;  and  that  Dutch 
Bill  (Sherman),  as  he  was  called,  was  drunk  and  very  abu 
sive.  He  said  this  was  the  second  time  they  had  been  to  his 
place  in  the  past  few  days,  and  he  did  not  propose  to  stand 
such  treatment  much  longer."  n 

Moved  by  this  and  other  provocations,  John  Brown  acted 
at  once.  "  Pottawatomie,"  says  Salmon  Brown,  "was  resolved 


152  JOHN  BROWN 

upon  by  father,  supported  by  the  leading  men  in  John's  com 
pany  —  maybe  a  dozen  —  and  by  his  own  crowd.  The  plan 
was  thoroughly  discussed  there  in  camp,  not  before  the  whole 
company,  but  in  the  council  thus  selected."  lz  August  Bondi, 
a  faithful  follower  of  John  Brown,  remembers  the  council 
well,  for  Brown  used  to  him  practically  the  same  words  - 
i  /"Something  must  be  done  tr>  gVirvm  thnm  bnrbnnRm  that 
/  we,  too,  liav^-^gjrtey^3  —  which  he  had  previously  spoken 
to  Weiner  and  Townsley.  It  is  clear  that  Tohn  Brown  did 
reveal  to  the  council  the  ^eneraToutlinp  nf  his  plan  ^3JJj 
wasaow  and  here  resolved  that  they,  their  aiders  and 
ought  to  kill  our  Buffering 


Jkilled,  and  in  such  manner  as  should  be  likely  to  ransp  a  re 
straining  fear/'  declares  John  brown,  Jr.,  and  Salmon  Brown 
"testifies!"" 

"The  general  purport  of  our  intentions  —  some  radical  retalia 
tory  measure  —  some  killing  —  was  well  understood  by  the  whole 
camp.  You  never  heard  such  cheering  as  they  gave  us  when  we 
started  out.15  They  were  wild  with  excitement  and  enthusiasm. 
The  principal  man  —  the  leader  —  in  the  council  that  resolved  on 
the  necessity  of  Pottawatomie,  —  was  H.  H.  Williams:  I  do  not 
know  that  I  ought  to  tell  this  since  he  himself  has  not;  but  it  is  the 
fact.  He  was  wholly  determined  that  the  thing  must  be  done.  He 
knew  all  those  men  on  the  Pottawatomie,  better  than  any  of  us. 
He  lived  among  them  —  was  familiar  with  all  their  characters.  He 
was  now  the  most  active  of  us  all  in  urging  this  step.  And  not  fif 
teen  minutes  before  we  left  to  go  to  Pottawatomie  I  saw  him,  my 
self,  write  out  a  list  of  the  men  who  were  to  be  killed  and  hand  it  to 
father.  This  was  on  the  crest  of  the  wave  of  enthusiasm.  Williams 
was  a  little  cautious,  I  always  thought,  even  then.  He  was  a  first- 
rate  fellow;  but  he  was  too  smart,  even  in  enthusiasm,  to  go  into  a 
thing  like  that,  personally,  when  he  could  get  some  one  else  to  do  it 
for  him.  Then,  when  it  was  all  over,  and  he  found  how  the  people 
down  at  home  took  it,  he  got  scared.  He  had  n't  the  backbone  to 
stand  by  his  own  mind,  against  popular  opinion,  —  he  went  back 
on  his  own  radical  measures,  weakened,  did  not  confess  to  his  own 
share  in  their  origin,  and  counselled  peace.  In  fact,  he  got  scared. 
Benjamin  told  me  about  this  afterward.  Williams  wrote  down  the 
names  of  the  men  whom,  he  said,  it  was  necessary  to  pick  off  to  pre 
vent  the  utter  destruction  of  the  whole  community  and  handed  the 
paper  to  father.  We  started  back,  thereupon,  for  the  Pottawatomie 
country,  which  was  the  headquarters  for  the  pro-slavery  men,  under 
Judge  Cato,  for  that  region,  to  pick  off  the  designated  men  promi 
nent  in  enforcing  Border  Ruffian  laws."  u 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         153 

About  noon,  John  Brown  selected  for  his  party  Henry 
Thompson,  Theodore  Weiner,  and  four  sons,  Owen,  Frederick, 
Salmon  and  Oliver.  In  order  to  secure  the  use  of  his  wagon, 
John  Brown  went  to  James  Townsley,  of  the  Pottawatomie 
Rifles,  saying  he  had  just  heard  trouble  was  expected  on  the 
Pottawatomie.  He  asked  Townsley  whether  he  could  not  take 
his  team  of  grays  and  convey  him  with  his  sons  back  to  Pot 
tawatomie.  Townsley  consented,  and  the  departure  was  fixed 
for  two  o'clock.17  The  interim  was  devoted  to  the  sharpen 
ing  of  some  of  the  odd-shaped  cutlasses,  the  gift  of  General- 
Lucius  V.  Bierce,  of  Akron,  Ohio,  that  John  Brown  had  brought 
West  with  him,  for  use  in  border  warfare.18  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  and  Jason  devoted  themselves  to  the  cutlasses,  while  a 
boy,  Bain  Fuller,  turned  the  grindstone;  but  Jason  insists 
that  he  had  no  idea  of  the  real  purpose  of  the  expedition.19 
Seeing  the  grinding  operation,  George  Grant  remarked  to 
Frederick  Brown:  "That  looks  like  business."  "Yes,"  was 
the  reply,  "it  does."  When  Grant  asked  whether  he  might 
not  also  ride  back  in  Townsley's  wagon,  Frederick  Brown 
consulted  his  father,  only  to  return  and  report:  "Father  says 
you  had  better  not  come."  20  Bain  Fuller,  whose  father  had 
received  John  Brown's  word  that  the  boy  should  not  get  into 
trouble,  was  told  to  go  home  and  to  be  sure  to  have  witnesses 
as  to  his  whereabouts  for  that  night.21  Before  Townsley's 
horses  were  ready  and  the  cutlasses  had  received  their  edge, 
a  feeling  came  over  some  of  the  men  in  the  camp  that  the 
radical  leader  of  the  returning  party  might  not  act  with 
sufficient  discretion.  One  of  them  went  to  John  Brown,  so 
relates  Judge  James  Hanway,  and  urged  "caution."  At  this, 
Brown,  who  was  packing  up  his  camp  fixtures,  instantly  stood 
erect  and  said:  "Caution,  caution,  sir.  I  am  eternally  tired 
of  hearing  that  word  caution.  It  is  nothing  but  the  word 
of  cowardice."  22  In  the  Kansas  Monthly,  for  January,  1880, 
Judge  Hanway  wrote:"!  ventured  to  approach  one  of  the 
eight,  and  from  him  learned  the  program  contemplated.  In 
fact,  I  received  an  invitation  to  be  one  of  the  party,  and 
being  unwilling  to  consent  before  I  learned  the  object,  I 
was  made  acquainted  with  the  object  of  the  expedition;  it 
shocked  me." 

With  the  shouts  of  their  comrades  in  their  ears,  the  party 


154  JOHN  BROWN 

set  off  in  Townsley's  wagon,  except  Weiner,  who,  riding  his 
pony,  gave  them  mounted  escort  as  they  retraced  their  way 
over  the  road  they  had  traversed  in  such  haste  and  excite 
ment  the  night  before.  "As  we  turned  back  with  the  evil 
news  [the  fate  of  Lawrence]  and  had  just  got  to  the  top  of 
the  hill  south  of  the  Wakarusa  —  the  high  ridge,"  says  Salmon 
Brown,  "a  man  named  Gardner  came  to  us  with  the  news  of 
the  assault  upon  Senator  Sumner  of  Bully  Brooks,*  —  carry 
ing  the  message  hidden  in  his  boot.  At  that  blow  the  men 
went  crazy  —  crazy.  It  seemed  to  be  the  finishing,  decisive 
touch."  Two  men  have  affirmed  that  they  met  the  expedition 
as  it  took  its  way  toward  what  is  now  the  little  hamlet  called 
Lane.  Captain  J.  M.  Anthony  and  a  squad  of  Free  State  men 
encountered  it  near  the  residence  of  Ottawa  Jones,  and  in 
their  surprise  at  seeing  fighting  men  returning  when  Lawrence 
was  in  distress,  asked  eagerly  whither  the  men  in  the  lumber 
wagon  were  bound.  "They  gave  us,"  says  Captain  Anthony, 
"no  answer  except  that  they  were  going  to  attend  to  very  ur 
gent  business  and  would  be  right  back  to  join  us  on  the  march 
to  Lawrence."  23  Near  sundown,  between  Pottawatomie  and 
Middle  Creek,  James  Blood  descried  a  wagon  with  a  mounted 
man  alongside,  going  toward  Pottawatomie  Creek.  As  he 
neared  the  wagon,  John  Brown  rose  in  it  and  cried  "Halt!" 
Blood  remembered  afterwards  that  the  men  in  the  wagon 
were  armed  with  rifles,  revolvers,  knives  and  General  Bierce's 
short  heavy  broadswords,  for  John  Brown  had  given  him  one 
of  these  cutlasses  when  in  Lawrence  during  the  Wakarusa 
excitement.  Brown,  Blood  found  to  be  very  indignant  that 
Lawrence  had  been  sacked  without  a  shot  being  fired  in  its 
behalf.  He  denounced  the  leading  Free  State  men  as  cowards 
or  worse.  "His  manner,"  wrote  Colonel  Blood  twenty- three 
years  later,  "was  wild  and  frenzied,  and  the  whole  party 
watched  with  excited  eagerness  every  word  or  motion  of  the 
old  man.  Finally,  as  I  left  them,  he  requested  me  not  to 
mention  the  fact  that  I  had  met  them,  as  they  were  on  a  secret 
expedition  and  did  not  want  anyone  to  know  that  they  were 
in  the  neighborhood."  *4 

That  night,  says  Townsley,  they  "drove  down  to  the  edge 

*  Congressman  Brooks,  of  South  Carolina,  assaulted  Senator  Sumner  in  the 
Senate  on  May  22,  1856,  striking  him  on  the  head  with  a  heavy  cane. 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        155 

of  the  timber  between  two  deep  ravines,  and  camped  about 
one  mile  above  Dutch  Henry's  Crossing."  ^5  And  there, 
Townsley  asserts,  John  Brown  told  him  for  the  first  time 
of  his  bloodthirsty  intentions,  and  refused  to  let  him  go 
when  he,  Townsley,  asked  to  be  allowed  to  take  his  team 
and  return  home.  All  the  next  day,  Saturday,  the  24th,  the 
little  company  literally  lay  on  their  arms  in  their  open-air 
camp.  For  it  was  in  the  night  that  John  Brown  proposed  to 
strike  his  blow,  in  order,  Salmon  Brown  declares,  that  they 
might  be  sure  to  catch  their  quarry  in  their  lairs.  "  Maybe," 
he  adds,  "Father  took  into  consideration  the  terrifying  ef 
fect  of  such  a  means."  Certainly,  the  hour  suited  the  deed. 
The  chase  was  trapped;  save  in  one  instance.  Henry  Sher 
man,  whose  absence  in  pursuit  of  wandering  cattle  saved 
his  life  for  another  year,  was  one  of  three  brothers,  German 
in  origin,  and  therefore  known  in  the  community  as  Dutch 
Bill,  Dutch  Henry  and  Dutch  Pete.  Border  Ruffians  by  their 
sympathies  and  their  instincts,  their  character  is  painted 
black  enough  by  their  Free  Soil  neighbors,  who  credited  them 
with  no  honest  ways  of  life,  generally  thought  of  them  as 
ignorant  and  drunken,  living  at  the  crossing  which  bore  the 
name  of  Dutch  Henry,  and  subsisting  by  making  money  out 
of  the  emigrants  or  "lifting"  a  horse  or  a  cow  or  two  from  the 
caravans  as  they  came  by.  For  this  well-known  ford  was  the 
point  where  the  much-used  road  from  Fort  Scott  to  the  Santa 
Fe  trail  and  the  old  California  road,  or  road  to  Oregon,  used 
by  emigrants  going  still  further  west,  crossed  the  Pottawato- 
mie.  Weiner' s  store  near-by  also  drew  patronage  from  these 
emigrant  parties,  and  to  it  the  Shermans  and  their  pro-slavery 
neighbors  had  carried  their  drunken  threats  of  extermination 
of  the  Abolitionists  that  had  so  stirred  Weiner,  Townsley 
and  Bondi.  Indeed,  the  two  diverse  elements  had  even  come 
to  blows,  as  Henry  Thompson  testifies.  For  several  midwinter 
months  he  had  helped  Weiner  to  keep  his  store.  Returning 
to  it  on  Christmas  Day,  he  found  Weiner  with  an  axe  handle 
beating  "Dutch  Bill"  Sherman,  who  fled  on  the  approach 
of  Thompson.  "He  attacked  me  in  my  own  store,"  said 
Weiner  by  way  of  explanation.26  "They  were  brutes  and 
bullies,"  declares  one  woman  who  resided  at  Osawatomie 
at  this  time,  in  speaking  of  the  murdered  men,  and  this 


156  JOHN  BROWN 

seems  to  sum  up  their  character  accurately,  if  the  adjective 
"ignorant"  be  added.27 

The  men  of  the  Doyle  family,  father  and  two  sons,  were 
low  "poor  whites"  from  Tennessee,  who,  while  sympathizing 
with  the  pro-slavery  element,  went  to  Kansas  because,  ac 
cording  to  Mrs.  Doyle,  they  had  found  that  slavery  was 
"ruinous  to  white  labor." 28  Mrs.  Doyle  herself  was  illiterate, 
and  it  is  altogether  likely  that  the  men  were.    The  family 
seems  to  have  been  very  intimate  with  "Dutch  Bill,"  who 
was  one  of  the  oldest  settlers  in  the  region,  and  considerably 
under  his  influence.     Allen  Wilkinson,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  a  man  of  some  education;  he  was  a  member  of  the  pro- 
slavery  Legislature,  and  returned  from  its  meetings  at  the 
Shawnee  Mission  more  than  ever  a  pro-slavery  man.    George 
W.  Grant  and  his  brother,  Henry  Grant,  have  testified  that 
Wilkinson  was  a  dangerous  man,  whom  everybody  feared; 
"the  most  evil  looking  man"  they  ever  saw,  "who  fearfully 
abused  a  nice  wife,  well  liked  by  the  neighbors."29    Wilkin 
son,  too,  was  free  with  his  threats  to  the  Free  Soil  settlers, 
'urging  them  to  "clear  out"  and  avoid  trouble.    All  of  them 
•  were  friendly  with  the  Missourians  who  passed  by,  acting 
jas  their  guides  and  advisers.   There  is  also  no  doubt  that 
when  the  Browns  entered  the  camp  of  Buford's  men  as  sur- 
jveyors,  they  found  these  obnoxious  pro-slavery  neighbors  on 
jgood  terms  with  the  invaders.30 

Not  unnaturally,  a  different  character  was  assigned  after 
'  their  murders  to  these  men  by  the  pro-slavery  leaders.  Thus, 
Henry  Clay  Pate,  correspondent  of  the  St.  Louis  Republi 
can  and  leader  of  a  pro-slavery  company,  testified  that  "  they 
had  no  fault  as  quiet  citizens  but  being  in  favor  of  slavery. 
That  was  the  crime  for  which  they  forfeited  their  lives."  31 
The  Rev.  Martin  White  insisted  to  the  pro-slavery  Legisla 
ture  that  Wilkinson  was  a  noble  man,  whose  "greatest  crime" 
was  that  "he  was  a  member  of  the  first  legislature  in  this 
territory,"  which  crime,  White  added,  was  the  reason  for 
his  death.32  Congressman  Oliver,  the  Democratic  member 
of  the  Howard  Committee,  was  satisfied,  after  taking  testi 
mony  in  the  case  of  the  murders,  that  Wilkinson  was  a  quiet, 
inoffensive  man.  "My  husband  was  a  quiet  man,  and  was 
not  engaged  in  arresting  or  disturbing  anybody.  He  took  no 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        157 

active  part  in  the  pro-slavery  cause,  so  as  to  aggravate  the 
Abolitionists,  but  he  was  a  pro-slavery  man,"  was  Mrs.  Wil 
kinson's  characterization  of  her  husband.33  The  Kansas 
Weekly  Herald  of  Leavenworth  affirmed  on  June  7,  1856,  that 
Wilkinson  was  a  member  of  the  Legislature,  and  that  the  other 
victims  were  "plain,  honest,  peaceable  farming  settlers." 
But  the  weight  of  evidence  is  too  strong  on  the  other  side  to 
make  it  possible  to  accept  this  characterization  as  correct.^ 
Excepting  perhaps  Wilkinson,  the  others  were  of  the  rough, 
brutal,  disorderly  element  to  be  found  in  every  frontier  out 
post,  whether  it  be  mining  camp  or  farmers'  settlement.  . — 

During  the  morning  of  Saturday,  the  24th,  when  John 
Brown's  party  of  avengers  lay  in  the  timber  between  two 
deep  ravines  a  mile  above  Dutch  Henry's  Crossing,  Towns- 
ley,  so  he  asserts,  did  his  best  to  dissuade  the  leader  and  his 
sons  from  carrying  out  their  plans,  and  to  this  end  "talked 
a  good  deal."  But  Brown  insisted  always  that  it  had  be 
come  necessary  "to  strike  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the  pro- 
slavery  people."  Townsley  even  avers  that  the  day's  delay 
was  due  to  his  protests  and  his  refusal  to  guide  the  company 
up  to  the  forks  of  Mosquito  Creek,  some  five  or  six  miles 
above,  and  point  out  where  pro-slavery  men  resided,  so  that 
Brown's  men  might  sweep  the  creek  of  them  as  they  came 
down.  This  Salmon  Brown  declares  to  be  nonsense,  a  plan 
that  "never  was  dreamed  of."  Moreover,  Weiner,  the  store 
keeper,  might  well  have  been  as  efficient  a  guide  as  Townsley, 
since  he  had  been  in  Kansas  longer  and  naturally  had  a 
wider  acquaintance.  The  delay,  too,  is  not  hard  to  explain. 
The  men  must  have  been  fairly  exhausted  when  they  en 
camped  in  the  timber,  since  they  had  marched  all  the  previous 
night  and,  after  working  all  the  morning,  had  driven  back 
over  rough  roads  between  two  o'clock  and  sundown.  To 
postpone  the  raid  in  order  to  obtain  necessary  sleep  was  most 
natural.  Then,  since  night-time  was  deemed  necessary  to 
trap  the  prey  sought,  the  day  in  camp  was  inevitable.  But 
on  this  fateful  day  the  sun  finally  sank  into  the  prairies,  and 
long  before  it  disappeared,  Townsley  had  resigned  himself  to 
his  situation  sufficiently  to  decide  that  he  would  go  along, 
albeit  unwillingly,  as  he  declares. 

As  for  the  rest,  aside  from  Weiner,  whom  Salmon  Brown 


158  JOHN  BROWN 

describes  as  a  "big,  savage,  bloodthirsty  Austrian"  who 
"  could  not  be  kept  out  of  any  accessible  fight,"  34  they  needed 
no  persuasion.  Whether  it  was  the  compelling  personality  of 
their  father,  whose  dominating  manner  and  will-power  later 
led  men  willingly  to  their  death  under  circumstances  against 
which  their  common  sense  revolted,  or  whether  there  was  in 
the  sons  a  sufficient  touch  of  an  inherited  mental  disturb 
ance  to  make  them  less  than  rational  in  their  reasoning,  there 
was  no  attempt  at  a  filial  revolt  against  a  parental  decision, 
even  when  they  went  unwillingl}^^rwo  sons,  at  least,  Freder 
ick  and  Oliver,  kept  their  hanas  unstained,35  and  probably 
protested,  only  to  submit  and  accompany  their  father  and 
imperious  commander  as  witnesses  of  the  horrors  of  that 
night,  sharing  the  guilt  of  all  in  the  eyes  of  the  law.  The  other 
brothers,  then  unaccustomed  to  the  sight  of  blood,  who  had 
hitherto  led  the  untroubled  lives  of  plain  American  citizens, 
were  exalted  or  nerved  now  to  deeds  at  which  a  trained  pro 
fessional  soldier  might  easily  and  creditably  shrink.  The 
sword  of  Gideon  was  unsheathed.  About  the  hour  of  ten 
o'clock  the  party,  armed  with  swords,  revolvers  and  rifles, 
proceeded  in  a  northerly  direction,  "  crossing  Mosquito  Creek 
above  the  residence  of  the  Doyles."  Soon  after  crossfrig  the 
creek,  some  one  of  the  party  knocked  at  the  door  of  a  cabin. 
There  was  no  reply,  but  from  within  came  the  sound  of  a 
gun  rammed  through  the  chinks  of  the  cabin  walls.  It  saved 
the  owner's  life,  for,  relates  Salmon  Brown,  "at  that  we  all 
scattered.  We  did  not  disturb  that  man.  With  some  candle 
wicking  soaked  in  coal  oil  to  light  and  throw  inside,  so  that 
we  could  see  within  while  he  could  not  see  outside,  we  would 
have  managed  it.  But  we  had  none.  It  was  a  method  much 
used  later." 

Thence  it  was  but  a  short  distance  to  the  ill-fated  Doyles'. 
To  add  to  the  natural  terrors  of  the  night  and  of  the  dark 
design,  there  came  to  meet  them,  at  the  very  threshold  of  the 
house,  two  dogs  —  "very  savage  bull  dogs."  One  of  these  sen 
tinels  Townsley  claims  to  have  helped  despatch,  for  though, 
according  to  his  own  story,  an  unwilling  abettor  under  com 
pulsion,  he  carried  one  of  the  deadly  Bierce  swords  and  was 
thus  an  armed  prisoner.  It  was  about  eleven  o'clock,  Mrs. 
Doyle  testified,  that  her  family  heard  a  knock.38 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        159 

"My  husband  got  up  and  went  to  the  door.  Those  outside  in 
quired  for  Mr.  Wilkson  [Wilkinson]  and  where  he  lived.  My  hus 
band  told  them  that  he  would  tell  them.  Mr.  Doyle,  my  husband, 
opened  the  door,  and  several  came  into  the  house,  and  said  that  they 
were  from  the  army.  My  husband  was  a  pro-slavery  man.  They 
told  my  husband  that  he  and  the  boys  must  surrender,  they  were 
their  prisoners.  These  men  were  armed  with  pistols  and  large  knives. 
They  first  took  my  husband  out  of  the  house,  then  they  took  two 
of  my  sons  —  the  two  oldest  ones,  William  and  Drury  —  out,  and 
then  took  my  husband  and  these  two  boys,  William  and  Drury, 
away.  My  son  John  was  spared,  because  I  asked  them  in  tears  to 
spare  him.  In  a  short  time  afterward  I  heard  the  report  of  pistols." 

Thus,  without  warning  or  notice,  her  husband  and  two  sons 
were  torn  from  her  and  despatched.  "When  we  entered  the 
Doyle  cabin,"  says  Salmon  Brown,  "Mrs.  Doyle  stormed, 
raved  at  her  men,  after  we  had  taken  them  prisoners.  '  Have  n'  t 
I  told  you  what  you  were  going  to  get  for  the  course  you  have 
been  taking?'  she  screamed.  'Hush,  mother,  hush/  replied 
her  husband."  Her  two  boys,  twenty- two  and  twenty  years 
of  age,  were  granted,  like  her  husband,  no  time  to  make  their 
peace,  no  time  to  ask  forgiveness  of  their  sins.  Townsley  af 
firms  that  he,  Frederick  Brown  and  Weiner  were  at  some  dis 
tance  ftom  the  house,  but  near  enough  to  cry  out  in  protest 
if  he  had  wished  to,  and  near  enough  to  see  that  John  Brown 
"drew  his  revolver  and  shot  old  man  Doyle  in  the  forehead, 
and  Brown's  two  younger  sons  immediately  fell  upon  the 
younger  Doyles  with  their  short  two-edged  swords."  But  in 
this,  according  to  Salmon  Brown,  Townsley  was  mistaken, 
just  as  he  erred  in  insisting  that  Watson  Brown,  then  at 
North  Elba,  was  present  and  playing  the  part  of  executioner. 
"Not  one  of  the  Doyles  ran  a  single  step,"  is  Salmon's  posi 
tive  statement.  "They  fell  where  they  stood.  I  think  that 
the  father  Doyle  was  not  the  first  of  the  three  to  be  killed." 

As  for  John  Brown's  own  part,  he  killed  none  of  them  with 
his  own  hand;  to  this  both  Henry  Thompson  and  Salmon 
Brown  bear  positive  witness,  as  did  John  Brown  himself. 
But  Mrs.  Doyle  did  hear  one  shot  at  least.  Salmon  Brown 
will  not  positively  state  that  his  father  fired  it,  but  admits 
that  no  one  else  in  the  party  pulled  a  trigger.  He  is  at  a  loss 
to  explain  why  the  shot  was  fired.  "It  did  no  possible  good, 
as  a  bullet,  for  Doyle  had  long  been  stone  dead."  And  his 


160  JOHN  BROWN 

father  could  therefore  truthfully  say  that  he  had  raised  his 
hand  against  no  living  man.  "I  was  three  hundred  yards 
away  when  the  shot  was  fired,"  is  Henry  Thompson's  state 
ment.  "  Those  who  were  on  the  spot  told  me  that  it  was  done 
after  Doyle  was  dead."  Even  with  Oliver  and  Frederick,  a 
younger  and  older  son,  taking  no  part,  the  killings  lasted  but 
a  moment.  Doyle  and  his  two  sons  in  an  instant  lay  lifeless, 
— a  Free  State  warning  to  the  pro-slavery  forces  that  it  was 
to  be  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  henceforth,  so  far 
as  one  wing  of  the  Free  State  party  was  concerned.  If  pro- 
slavery  men  had  not  been  made  to  die  when  Lawrence  fell, 
here  were  three  to  even  up  the  score.  "  My  husband,  and  two 
boys,  my  sons,"  testified  the  simple,  untutored,  pitiful  Ma- 
hala  Doyle,  "did  not  come  back  any  more.  I  went  out  next 
morning  in  search  of  them,  and  found  my  husband  and  Wil 
liam,  my  son,  lying  dead  in  the  road  near  together,  about 
two  hundred  yards  from  the  house.  My  other  son  I  did  not 
see  any  more  until  the  day  he  was  buried.  I  was  so  much 
overcome  that  I  went  into  the  house.  They  were  buried  the 
next  day.  On  the  day  of  the  burying  I  saw  the  dead  body  of 
Drury.  Fear  of  myself  and  the  remaining  children  induced 
me  to  leave  the  home  where  we  had  been  living.  We  had 
improved  our  claim  a  little.  I  left  all  and  went  to  the  State 
of  Missouri." 

"I  found  my  father  and  one  brother,  William,  lying  dead 
in  the  road,  about  two  hundred  yards  from  the  house,"  tes 
tified  John  Doyle.37  "I  saw  my  other  brother  lying  dead  on 
the  ground,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the 
house,  in  the  grass,  near  a  ravine;  his  fingers  were  cut  off, 
and  his  arms  were  cut  off;  his  head  was  cut  open;  there  was  a 
hole  in  his  breast.  William's  head  was  cut  open,  and  a  hole 
was  in  his  jaw,  as  though  it  was  made  by  a  knife,  and  a  hole 
was  also  in  his  side.  My  father  was  shot  in  the  forehead  and 
stabbed  in  the  breast."  "  Owen  and  another  killed  the  Doyles," 
says  Salmon  Brown,  and  by  a  process  of  elimination  it  is 
apparent  that  the  other  could  only  have  been  himself.  "It  is 
not  true,"  Townsley  testifies,  "that  there  was  any  intentional 
mutilation  of  the  bodies  after  they  were  killed.  They  were 
slain  as  quickly  as  possible  and  left,  and  whatever  gashes 
they  received  were  inflicted  in  the  process  of  cutting  them 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE       161' 

down  with  swords.  I  understand  that  the  killing  was  done 
with  these  swords  so  as  to  avoid  alarming  the  neighborhood 
by  the  discharge  of  firearms."  _-. 

The  next  man  to  meet  his  fate  at  the  hands  of  John  Brown's 
merciless  party  was  Wilkinson.  The  same  procedure  was 
adopted.  Somewhere  between  the  hours  of  midnight  and  day 
break,  "we  were  disturbed  by  the  barking  of  the  dog,"  Mrs. 
Wilkinson  informed  Congressman  Oliver,  under  oath.38  She 
continued : 

"  I  was  sick  with  the  measles,  and  woke  up  Mr.  Wilkinson,  and 
asked  if  he  heard  the  noise  and  what  it  meant?  He  said  it  was  only 
someone  passing  about,  and  soon  after  was  again  asleep.  It  was  not 
long  before  the  dog  raged  and  barked  furiously,  awakening  me  once 
more;  pretty  soon  I  heard  footsteps  as  of  men  approaching;  saw 
one  pass  by  the  window,  and  some  one  knocked  at  the  door.  I  asked, 
who  is  that?  No  one  answered.  I  awoke  my  husband,  who  asked, 
who  is  that?  Someone  replied,  '  I  want  you  to  tell  me  the  way  to 
Dutch  Henry's.'  He  commenced  to  tell  them,  and  they  said  to  him, 
'  Come  out  and  show  us.'  He  wanted  to  go,  but  I  would  not  let  him ; 
he  then  told  them  it  was  difficult  to  find  his  clothes,  and  could  tell 
them  as  well  without  going  out  of  doors.  The  men  out  of  doors, 
after  that,  stepped  back,  and  I  thought  I  could  hear  them  whisper 
ing;  but  they  immediately  returned,  and,  as  they  approached,  one 
of  them  asked  of  my  husband,  'Are  you  a  northern  armist?'  He 
said,  'I  am!'  I  understood  the  answer  to  mean  that  my  husband 
was  opposed  to  the  northern  or  freesoil  party.  I  cannot  say  that  I 
understood  the  question.  My  husband  was  a  pro-slavery  man,  and 
was  a  member  of  the  territorial  legislature  held  at  Shawnee  Mission. 
When  my  husband  said  '  I  am,'  one  of  them  said,  'You  are  our  pris 
oner.  Do  you  surrender?'  He  said,  'Gentlemen,  I  do.'  They  said, 
'open  the  door.'  Mr.  Wilkinson  told  them  to  wait  till  he  made  a 
light;  and  they  replied,  'if  you  don't  open  it,  we  will  open  it  for  you/ 
He  opened  the  door  against  my  wishes,  and  four  men  came  in,  and 
my  husband  was  told  to  put  on  his  clothes,  and  they  asked  him  if 
there  were  not  more  men  about;  they  searched  for  arms,  and  took  a 
gun  and  powder  flask,  all  the  weapon  that  was  about  the  house.  I 
begged  them  to  let  Mr.  Wilkinson  stay  with  me,  saying  that  I  was 
sick  and  helpless,  and  could  not  stay  by  myself.  My  husband  also 
asked  them  to  let  him  stay  with  me  until  he  could  get  someone  to 
wait  on  me;  told  them  that  he  would  not  run  off,  but  would  be  there 
the  next  day,  or  whenever  called  for.  The  old  man,  who  seemed  to 
be  in  command,  looked  at  me  and  then  around  at  the  children,  and 
replied,  'You  have  neighbors.'  I  said,  'So  I  have,  but  they  are  not 
here,  and  I  cannot  go  for  them.'  The  old  man  replied,  'it  matters 
not.'  I  [he?]  told  him  to  get  ready.  My  husband  wanted  to  put  on 


162  JOHN  BROWN 

his  boots  and  get  ready,  so  as  to  be  protected  from  the  damp  and 
night  air,  but  they  would  n't  let  him.  They  then  took  my  husband 
away.  One  of  them  came  back  and  took  two  saddles ;  I  asked  him 
what  they  were  going  to  do  with  him,  and  he  said, '  take  him  a  pris 
oner  to  the  camp.'  I  wanted  one  of  them  to  stay  with  me.  He  said 
he  would,  but  'they  would  not  let  him.'  After  they  were  gone,  I 
thought  I  heard  my  husband's  voice,  in  complaint,  but  do  not  know ; 
went  to  the  door,  and  all  was  still.  Next  morning  Mr.  Wilkinson 
was  found  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the  house  in  some 
dead  brush.  A  lady  who  saw  my  husband's  body,  said  that  there 
was  a  gash  in  his  head  and  in  his  side;  others  said  that  he  was  cut 
in  the  throat  twice." 

"We  divided  our  forces  at  Wilkinson's,  I  think,  into  two 
parties  to  go  on  separate  errands,"  is  Salmon  Brown's  testi 
mony.  "  Henry  Thompson  and  Weiner  killed  Wilkinson  and 
Sherman.  My  party  was  not  present  when  Wilkinson  and 
Sherman  were  killed.  Townsley  could  not  have  been  present 
at  each  crisis,  as  he  implies.  No  one  else  was."  Yet  Townsley 
attributes  Wilkinson's  murder  to  "one  of  the  younger  Browns  " 
and  adds:  "After  he  was  killed  his  body  was  dragged  to  one 
side  and  left."  Henry  Thompson  states  that  he  was  not  pre 
sent  when  the  Doyles  were  killed,  but  is  silent  as  to  the  fate 
of  Wilkinson  and  Sherman. 

The  "old  man"  to  whom  Mrs.  Wilkinson's  pleading  for 
her  husband's  life  had  "mattered  not"  was  still  unplacated 
when  Wilkinson's  dead  body  lay  in  the  brush.  The  next  and 
last  man  to  die  was  William  Sherman.  "We  then  crossed  the 
Pottawatomie  and  came  to  the  house  of  Henry  Sherman," 
is  Townsley's  tale.  "Here  John  Brown  and  the  party,  except 
ing  Frederick  Brown,  Weiner  and  myself,  who  were  left  out 
side  a  short  distance  from  the  door,  went  into  the  house  and 
brought  out  one  or  two  persons,  talked  with  them  some,  and 
then  took  them  in  again.  They  afterward  brought  out  William 
Sherman,  Dutch  Henry's  brother,  marched  him  down  into 
the  Pottawatomie  Creek,  where  he  was  slain  with  swords 
by  Brown's  two  youngest  sons  and  left  lying  in  the  creek." 
•But  Townsley  was  again  wrong  as  to  his  details,  for  the  house 
was  not  Sherman's,  but  that  of  James  Harris,  who  promptly 
made  affidavit  thereto  and  thus  related  what  befell :  39 

"On  last  Sunday  morning,  about  two  o'clock,  (the  25th  of  May 
last,)  whilst  my  wife  and  child  and  myself  were  in  bed  in  the  house 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         163 

where  we  lived,  we  were  aroused  by  a  company  of  men  who  said 
they  belonged  to  the  northern  army,  and  who  were  each  armed 
with  a  sabre  and  two  revolvers,  two  of  whom  I  recognized,  namely,  a 
Mr.  Brown,  whose  given  name  I  do  not  remember,  commonly  known 
by  the  appellation  of  'old  man  Brown,'  and  his  son,  Owen  Brown. 
They  came  in  the  house  and  approached  the  bedside  where  we  were 
lying,  and  ordered  us,  together  with  three  other  men  who  were  in 
the  same  house  with  me,  to  surrender ;  that  the  northern  army  was 
upon  us,  and  it  would  be  no  use  for  us  to  resist.  The  names  of  these 
other  three  men  who  were  then  in  my  house  with  me  are,  William 
Sherman,  John  S.  Whiteman,  the  other  man  I  did  not  know.  They 
were  stopping  with  me  that  night.  They  had  bought  a  cow  from 
Henry  Sherman,  and  intended  to  go  home  the  next  morning.  When 
they  [the  Browns]  came  up  to  the  bed,  some  had  drawn  sabres  in 
their  hands,  and  some  revolvers.  They  then  took  into  their  pos 
session  two  rifles  and  a  Bowie  knife,  which  I  had  there  in  the  room 
—  there  was  but  one  room  in  my  house  —  and  afterward  ransacked 
the  whole  establishment  in  search  of  ammunition.  They  then  took 
one  of  these  three  men,  who  were  staying  in  my  house,  out.  (This 
was  the  man  whose  name  I  did  not  know.)  He  came  back.  They 
then  took  me  out,  and  asked  me  if  there  were  any  more  men  about 
the  place.  I  told  them  there  were  not.  They  searched  the  place, 
but  found  none  others  but  we  four.  They  asked  me  where  Henry 
Sherman  was.  Henry  Sherman  was  a  brother  to  William  Sherman. 
I  told  them  that  he  was  out  on  the  plains  in  search  of  some  cattle 
which  he  had  lost.  They  asked  if  I  had  ever  taken  any  hand  in  aid 
ing  pro-slavery  men  in  coming  to  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  or  had 
ever  taken  any  hand  in  the  last  troubles  at  Lawrence,  and  asked 
me  whether  I  had  ever  done  the  free  State  party  any  harm  or  ever 
intended  to  do  that  party  any  harm ;  they  asked  me  what  made  me 
live  at  such  a  place.  I  then  answered  that  I  could  get  higher  wages 
there  than  anywhere  else.  They  asked  me  if  there  were  any  bridles 
or  saddles  about  the  premises.  I  told  them  there  was  one  saddle, 
which  they  took,  and  they  also  took  possession  of  Henry  Sherman's 
horse,  which  I  had  at  my  place,  and  made  me  saddle  him.  They 
then  said  if  I  would  answer  no  to  all  questions  which  they  had  asked 
me,  they  would  let  [me?]  loose.  Old  Mr.  Brown  and  his  son  then 
went  into  the  house  with  me.  The  other  three  men,  Mr.  William 
Sherman,  Mr.  Whiteman,  and  the  stranger  were  in  the  house  all 
this  time.  After  old  man  Brown  and  his  son  went  into  the  house  with 
me,  old  man  Brown  asked  Mr.  Sherman  to  go  out  with  him,  and 
Mr.  Sherman  then  went  out  with  old  Mr.  Brown,  and  another  man 
came  into  the  house  in  Brown's  place.  I  heard  nothing  more  for 
about  fifteen  minutes.  Two  of  the  northern  army,  as  they  styled 
themselves,  stayed  on  with  us  until  we  heard  a  cap  burst,  and  then 
these  two  men  left.  That  morning  about  ten  o'clock  I  found  Wil 
liam  Sherman  dead  in  the  creek  near  my  house.  I  was  looking  for 
Mr.  Sherman,  as  he  had  not  come  back,  I  thought  he  had  been  mur- 


164  JOHN  BROWN 

dered.  I  took  Mr.  William  Sherman  out  of  the  creek  and  examined 
him.  Mr.  Whiteman  was  with  me.  Sherman's  skull  was  split  open 
in  two  places  and  some  of  his  brains  was  washed  out  by  the  water. 
A  large  hole  was  cut  in  his  breast,  and  his  left  hand  was  cut  off  ex 
cept  a  little  piece  of  skin  on  one  side.  We  buried  him." 

;re  Thompson  and  Weiner  were  again  the  executioners, 
according  to  Salmon  Brown.  "Neither  of  the  younger  sons, 
nor  Owen,  was  present  when  William  Sherman  was  killed." 
Then,  at  last,  John  Brown  was  satisfied.  He  had  told  Towns- 
ley  that  he  must  take  matters  into  his  own  hands  "for  the 
protection  of  the  Free  State  settlers;  that  it  was  better  that 
a  score  of  bad  men  should  die  than  that  one  man  who  came 
here  to  make  Kansas  a  Free  State  should  be  driven  out." 
The  rising  Sabbath  sun  shone  on  five  mutilated  bodies,  their 
very  starkness,  in  their  executioner's  eyes,  a  protection  to  the 
Free  State  settlers  for  many  miles  around.  The  bloody  night's 
work  was  over.  Confusion  now  had  made  his  masterpiece. 

Three  and  one  half  years  later,  when  in  jail  and  under 
sentence  of  death,  John  Brown  received  the  following  letter 
purporting  to  come  from  Mahala  Doyle.  Mrs.  Doyle  could 
not  write,  and  the  letter  is  obviously,  in  its  style,  beyond  her 
homely  powers  of  expression,  though  she  may  have  signed  it, 
and  there  is  nothing  in  it  she  might  not  have  said  in  her  own 
way: 

CHATTANOOGA,  TENNESSEE  Nov.  20th,  1859.*° 

JOHN  BROWN:  —  SIR,  —  Altho'  vengence  is  not  mine  I  confess 
that  I  do  feel  gratified,  to  hear  that  you  were  stopped  in  your  fiend 
ish  career  at  Harper's  Ferry,  with  the  loss  of  your  two  sons,  you 
can  now  appreciate  my  distress  in  Kansas,  when  you  then  &  there 
entered  my  house  at  midnight  and  arrested  my  Husband  and  two 
boys,  and  took  them  out  of  the  yard  and  in  cold  blood  shot  them 
dead  in  my  hearing,  you  cant  say  you  done  it  to  free  slaves,  we  had 
none  and  never  expected  to  own  one,  but  has  only  made  me  a  poor 
disconsolate  widow  with  helpless  children,  while  I  feel  for  your 
folly  I  do  hope  &  trust  that  you  will  meet  your  just  reward.  O  how 
it  pained  my  heart  to  hear  the  dying  groans  of  my  Husband  &  chil 
dren,  if  this  scrawl  gives  you  any  consolation  you  are  welcome  to  it 

MAHALA  DOYLE. 

N.  B.  My  son  John  Doyle  whose  life  I  beged  of  you  is  now  grown 
up  and  is  very  desirous  to  be  at  Charlestown  on  the  day  of  your 
execution,  would  certainly  be  there  if  his  means  would  permit  it 
that  he  might  adjust  the  rope  around  your  neck  if  Gov.  Wise  would 
permit  it.  M.  DOYLE. 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        165 

Townsley  asserts  that  Brown 'was  intent  upon  killing 
George  Wilson,  Probate  Judge  of  Anderson  County,  whom  he 
hoped  to  find  at  Sherman's,  for  the  reason  that  he  had  been 
warning  Free  State  men  to  leave  the  Territory.  Townsley 
claimed  to  have  received  such  a  notice  himself.  But  Salmon 
Brown  and  Henry  Thompson  deny  positively  that  Wilson 
was  on  the  proscribed  list.  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  was  no 
further  search  for  any  one,  and  the  blood-stained  party  went 
back  to  the  camping-place  in  the  timber  between  the  two  deep 
ravines,  their  swords,  "unmannerly  breached  with  gore," 
being  first  washed  in  Pottawatomie  Creek.  Just  before  day 
light,  Townsley  avers,  Owen  Brown  came  to  him  and  said, 
"There  shall  be  no  more  such  work  as  that."  In  the  after 
noon  the  eight  men  started  back  to  rejoin  the  Pottawatomie 
company  under  John  Brown,  Jr.  They  found  it  about  mid 
night,  encamped  near  Ottawa  Jones's  farm,  where,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  news  of  their  awful  deed  had  already  preceded 
them,  and  where  John  Brown,  Jr.,  had  resigned  the  cap 
taincy  of  the  company.  As  soon  as  Jason  Brown,  whose 
hatred  of  blood-letting  had  deprived  him  of  his  father's  con 
fidence  when  violent  deeds  were  under  way,  met  his  father 
face  to  face,  he  encountered  him  tremblingly,  —  for  this  was 
the  "worst  shock"  that  ever  came  to  him  in  his  life.41  "Did 
you,"  he  demanded  of  his  father,  "have  anything  to  do  with 
the  killing  of  those  men  on  the  Pottawatomie?"  "I  did  not 
do  it,"  the  father  replied,  "but  I  approved  of  it."  "I  spoke 
to  him  as  I  then  felt  about  it,"  continues  Jason;  "I  did  not 
fully  understand  the  cause  of  it  then,  and  told  him  I  was  very 
sorry  the  act  had  been  done.  I  said  to  him : '  I  think  it  was  an 
uncalled  for,  wicked  act.'  He  said: 'God  is  my  judge.  It  was 
absolutely  necessary  as  a  measure  of  self-defence,  and  for 
the  defence  of  others.'  I  cannot  give  his  exact  language,  but 
this  was  the  purport  of  it.  It  seemed  to  hurt  his  feelings  that 
I  felt  so  about  it.  He  soon  after  left  us,  and  John  and  I  re 
turned  to  Osawatomie."  Not,  however,  until  he  had  sought 
additional  information.  He  inquired  of  his  brother  Frederick 
if  he  knew  who  the  murderers  were.  "Yes  I  do,  but  I  can't 
tell  you."  "  Did  you  kill  any  of  them  with  your  own  hands?  " 
"No;  when  I  came  to  see  what  manner  of  work  it  was,  I 
could  not  do  it."  The  tears  rolled  down  Frederick's  face  as  he 


166  JOHN  BROWN 

spoke,  Jason  reports;  and  this  eye-witness  of  the  tragedy  seems 
never  to  have  learned  to  approve  of  it.  In  this  he  was  in  marked 
contrast  to  Townsley,  for,  unwilling  participant  as  he  was,  he 
stated  that  after  the  event  he  became  convinced  that  it  resulted 
in  good  to  the  Free  State  settlers  on  Pottawatomie  Creek. 

Jason  and  John  Brown,  Jr.,  felt  too  badly  to  join  forces 
with  their  father.  The  Pottawatomie  Company  started  for 
home  under  H.  H.  Williams  in  a  very  different  frame  of  mind 
toward  the  men  they  had  so  gayly  cheered  out  of  camp  but 
three  days  before,  either  because  of  a  sudden  repentance,  or 
of  their  having  expected  a  stand-up  fight  instead  of  a  slaugh 
ter,  or  because  the  deed  in  its  reality  seemed  so  much  worse 
than  in  anticipation  that  those  in  the  secret  joined  the  others 
in  their  detestation  of  it.  John  Brown  and  his  fellow  execu 
tioners  fell  behind  the  company,  after  crossing  Middle  Creek, 
and  struck  off  by  themselves  in  the  direction  of  Jason's  and 
the  younger  John's  homes.  Jason  and  John  headed  not  for 
their  cabins  but  for  Osawatomie.  Already  the  roads  were 
lined  with  men,  so  Jason  narrates,42  from  Palmyra  to  Osa 
watomie,  looking  for  the  Browns.  The  brothers  got  to  the 
Adair  cabin,  where  both  their  wives  had  taken  refuge  during 
their  absence,  at  about  9  P.  M.  Adair  came  to  the  door  with 
his  gun.  "Who's  there?"  said  he.  "John  and  I."  "Can't 
keep  you  here.  Our  lives  are  threatened.  Every  moment  we 
expect  to  have  our  house  burned  over  our  heads."  To  their 
entreaties,  he  only  repeated:  "I  cannot  keep  you."  "Here 
are  we  two  alone,"  pleaded  Jason.  "We  have  eaten  nothing 
all  day.  Let  us  lie  on  your  floor  until  morning  —  in  your 
out-house  —  anywhere."  Then  Mrs.  Adair  came  and  asked, 
"Did  you  have  anything  to  do  with  the  murders  on  the 
Pottawatomie?"  "I  did  not,"  said  Jason.  "And  John  had 
no  action  in  it."  "Then,"  said  Mrs.  Adair,  "you  may  stay. 
But  we  risk  our  lives  in  keeping  you."  They  gave  the  two 
a  mattress  on  the  floor  beside  the  Adairs'  bed,  and  the  four 
talked  till  midnight,  Jason  telling  all  he  knew  of  the  affair. 
John  lay  groaning.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  John  spoke  to 
his  Aunt  Florilla.  "  I  feel  that  I  am  going  insane,"  said  he,  and 
in  the  morning  he  was  insane.  Jason  had  slept  after  a  while, 
but  John  could  not.  His  mind  was  gone,  yet  not  so  far  gone 
but  that  he  was  able  to  understand  and  to  acquiesce  when 


SALMON    BROWN 


JOHN    BROWN,   JR. 


JASON    BROWN 


FOUR   OF  JOHN   BROWN'S   SONS 
In  later  years 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        167 

Jason  advised  him  to  hide,  and  to  act  upon  it.  About  two  or 
three  o'clock  that  same  night,  a  knock  had  been  heard  at  the 
door.  "Who's  there?  "  called  out  Adair.  "Owen."  "  Get  away, 
get  away  as  quick  as  you  can !  You  endanger  our  lives."  Adair 
would  not  parley  or  let  him  in.  "You  are  a  vile  murderer, 
a  marked  man!"  said  he.43  "I  intend  to  be  a  marked  man!" 
shouted  Owen,  and  rode  away  —  on  one  of  the  murdered 
men's  horses. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Adair  was  not  the  only  one  to  feel  outraged 
at  first  by  the  murders  committed  by  his  relatives.  John 
T.  Grant  and  Judge  Hanway,  two  of  the  best  Free  State  set 
tlers  in  that  region,  talked  the  matter  over,  so  J.  G.  Grant,  a 
son  of  the  former,  recollects,44  and  agreed  that  John  Brown's 
action  was  inexcusable.  He  had  taken,  they  said,  the  mo 
ment  when  the  families  of  all  the  men  who  had  gone  to  the 
rescue  of  Lawrence  were  helpless,  to  commit  a  crime  which 
invited  and  provoked  a  vengeful  attack  upon  the  settlement. 
Was  that  sane  or  decent,  they  asked?  And  was  it  excusable 
for  ihim,  after  the  murder,  to  march  away  from  the  seat 
of  danger  and  rejoin  the  company  at  Ottawa  Jones's,  thus 
leaving  the  women  and  children  more  than  ever  helpless? 
Not  until  some  time  afterwards  did  Adair  and  Hanway,  like 
Townsley,  come  around  to  an  approval  of  the  deed  as  they 
saw  it  in  retrospect.  "Last  Sunday  or  Monday,"  wrote  on 
May  31,  1856,  James  H.  Carruth,  another  Osawatomie  Free 
State  settler  of  character,  to  the  Watertown,  New  York,  jfo- 
/0rwer,45 "  five  pro-slavery  men  were  killed  seven  or  eight  miles 
from  here.  It  is  said  that  they  had  threatened  to  hang  another 
pro-slavery  man  who  had  sold  provisions  to  the  free  state 
men  unless  he  left  the  territory  in  a  few  hours,  and  that  one 
of  them  had  been  around  the  neighborhood  brandishing  his 
bowie-knife  and  threatening  to  kill  people.  It  was  murder, 
nevertheless,  and  the  free-state  men  here  cooperate  with  the 
pro-slavery  men  in  endeavoring  to  arrest  the  murderers." 
"Threatened  and  ordered  to  leave  in  given  time  under  pen 
alty  of  death,  some  few  persons  committed  the  horrid  murders 
at  Pottawatomie  10  miles  above,"  was  the  way  O.  C.  Brown 
described  the  crime  on  June  24,  1856,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend.48 
The  writer  was  no  relative  of  the  murderers,  but  a  staunch 
Free  State  man  and  a  leader  at  Osawatomie.  H.  L.  Jones, 


168  JOHN  BROWN. 

another  settler,  declares  that  the  act  was  generally  believed 
by  Free  State  men  to  be  warranted  at  the  time,  but  that 
"policy  dictated  that  the  deed  should  be  disavowed  as  having 
general  disapproval."  47  George  Thompson,  a  settler  who  lived 
four  miles  northeast  of  the  Brown  claims,  testified,  in  1894, 
that  "at  the  time  of  the  executions  of  the  Doyles,  Wilkinson 
and  Sherman,  with  many  of  my  neighbors  I  did  not  approve 
the  act,  but  since,  on  more  fully  understanding  the  circum 
stances,  I  believe  the  act  to  have  been  wise  and  justifiable."  48 
Three  days  after  the  murders,  a  public  meeting  was  held 
in  Osawatomie,  of  which  C.  H.  Price  was  chairman  and  H.  H. 
Williams  secretary.  It  adopted  unanimously  the  following 
emphatic  resolutions: 

"Whereas,  An  outrage  of  the  darkest  and  foulest  nature1  has  been 
committed  in  our  midst  by  some  midnight  assassins  unknown,  who 
have  taken  five  of  our  citizens  at  the  hour  of  midnight  from  their 
homes  and  families,  and  murdered  and  mangled  them  in  the  most 
awful  manner;  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  these  deeds,  we  deem  it 
necessary  to  adopt  some  measures  for  our  mutual  protection  and  to 
aid  and  assist  in  bringing  these  desperadoes  to  justice.  Under  these 
circumstances  we  propose  to  act  up  to  the  following  resolutions: 

"  Resolved,  That  we  will  from  this  time  lay  aside  all  sectional 
and  political  feelings  and  act  together  as  men  of  reason  and  common 
sense,  determined  to  oppose  all  men  who  are  so  ultra  in  their  views 
as  to  denounce  men  of  opposite  opinion. 

"  Resolved,  That  we  will  repudiate  and  discountenance  all  organ 
ized  bands  of  men  who  leave  their  homes  for  the  avowed  purpose  of 
exciting  others  to  acts  of  violence,  believing  it  to  be  the  duty  of  all 
good  disposed  citizens  to  stay  at  home  during  these  exciting  times 
and  protect  and  if  possible  restore  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the 
neighborhood ;  furthermore  we  will  discountenance  all  armed  bodies 
of  men  who  may  come  amongst  us  from  any  other  part  of  the  Ter 
ritory  or  from  the  States  unless  said  parties  shall  come  under  the 
authority  of  the  United  States. 

11  Resolved,  That  we  pledge  ourselves,  individually  and  collectively, 
to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  a  similar  tragedy  and  to  ferret  out  and 
hand  over  to  the  criminal  authorities  the  perpetrators  for  punishment. 

C.  H.  Price,  President 
R.  Golding,  Chairman 
R.  Gilpatrick 


"H.  H.  Williams*  W.  C.  McDow 


Secretary  S.  V.  Vandaman 

A.  Castele 
John  Blunt 

If  Salmon  Brown's  memory  of  H.  H,  Williams's  instigation  of  the  murders 


Committee" 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        169 

The  Kansas  Weekly  Herald  of  Leaven  worth,  on  June  14,  in 
printing  these  resolutions,49  says:  "The  outlaws  that  are  now 
prowling  about  over  the  country  and  murdering  harmless  and 
innocent  men,  it  will  be  seen,  have  been  denounced  publicly  by 
persons  of  their  own  political  opinions.  The  President  of  the 
meeting  is  a  Pro-slavery  man,  and  the  Secretary,  Free  State." 
"The  respectability  of  the  parties  and  the  cruelties  attending 
these  murders  have  produced  an  extraordinary  state  of  excite 
ment  in  that  portion  of  the  territory,  which  has,  heretofore, 
remained  comparatively  quiet,"  Governor  Shannon  reported 
on  May  31,  1856,  to  President  Pierce.50  "The  effect  of  this 
massacre  on  the  inhabitants  of  the  creeks  was  greatly  to  alarm 
both  parties.  The  pro-slavery  settlers  almost  entirely  left  at 
once  anc^  the  Free  State  people  were  constantly  fearful,"  was 
the  statement  of  George  W.  and  H.  C.  Grant,  also  sons  of  J.  T. 
Grant.51  "  No  one  can  defend  the  action  of  the  marshal's  posse 
at  Lawrence,  in  burning  the  hotel,  destroying  the  printing- 
press  and  other  outrages,"  wrote  Major  John  Sedgwick,  First 
Cavalry,  from  Fort  Leavenworth,  on  June  n,  1856,  seven 
teen  days  after  the  Pottawatomie  massacre,  and  just  eight 
years  before  he  gave  his  life  for  the  Union  as  a  distinguished 
major-general  of  volunteers  in  the  battle  of  Spottsylvania, 
"but  no  life  was  lost,  no  one  was  threatened  or  felt  himself 
in  danger.  In  retaliation  for  this  act,  inoffensive  citizens  have 
been  plundered,  their  houses  robbed  and  burned,  and  five 
men  were  taken  out  of  their  beds,  their  throats  cut,  their  ears 
cut  off,  their  persons  gashed  more  horribly  than  our  savages 
have  ever  done.  I  sincerely  think  that  most  of  the  atrocities 
have  been  committed  by  the  free-soil  party,  but  I  cannot  think 
that  they  countenance  such  acts  —  that  is,  the  respectable 
class."  52 

If  Major  Sedgwick  was  correct  in  his  estimate  of  the  atti 
tude  of  the  Free  State  men  toward  midnight  assassination, 
at  the  hour  he  wrote,  it  is  undeniable  that  as  time  passed, 
opinions  about  Brown's  actions  began  to  change.  "I  never 
had  much  doubt  that  Capt.  Brown  was  the  author  of  the  blow 
at  Pottawatomie,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  the  only  man 
who  comprehended  the  situation,  and  saw  the  absolute  neces- 

is  correct,  his  serving  at  this  settler's  meeting  convicts  Williams  of  almost  incred 
ible  hypocrisy  and  cowardice. 


i;o  JOHN  BROWN 

sity  of  some  such  blow  and  had  the  nerve  to  strike  it,"  wrote 
Governor  Charles  Robinson,  Februarys,  1878,  nearly  two  years 
before  Townsley's  confession  was  published.53  Judge  Han- 
way,  as  we  have  already  seen,  altered  his  position  radically, 
and  in  the  following  statement  of  February  I,  1878,  accurately 
summarizes  the  progress  of  public  opinion  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  crime: 

".  .  .  So  far  as  public  opinion  in  the  neighborhood,  where  the 
affair  took  place,  is  concerned,  I  believe  I  may  state  that  the  first 
news  of  the  event  produced  such  a  shock  that  public  opinion  was 
considerably  divided;  but  after  the  whole  circumstances  became 
known,  there  was  a  reaction  in  public  opinion  and  the  Free  State 
settlers  who  had  claims  on  the  creek  considered  that  Capt.  Brown 
and  his  party  of  eight  had  performed  a  justifiable  act,  which  saved 
their  homes  and  dwellings  from  threatened  raids  of  the  proslavery 
party."54 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  in  his  'Cheerful  Yester 
days/  states: 

"In  regard  to  the  most  extreme  act  of  John  Brown's  Kansas 
career,  the  so-called  ' Pottawatomie  massacre*  of  May  24,  1856,  I 
can  testify  that  in  September  of  that  year,  there  appeared  to  be  but 
one  way  of  thinking  among  the  Kansas  Free  State  men.  ...  I 
heard  of  no  one  who  did  not  approve  of  the  act,  and  its  beneficial 
effects  were  universally  asserted  —  Governor  Robinson  himself  fully 
endorsing  it  to  me.  .  .  ." 55 

How  may  the  killings  on  the  Pottawatomie,  this  terrible 
violation  of  the  statute  and  the  moral  laws,  be  justified?  This 
is  the  question  which  has  confronted  every  student  of  John 
Brown's  life  since  it  was  definitely  established  that  Brown 
was,  if  not  actually  a  principal  in  the  crime,  an  accessory  and 
an  instigator.  There  have  been  advanced  many  excuses  for 
the  killings,  and  a  number  of  them  deserve  careful  scrutiny. 
That  there  may  be  times  in  a  newly  settled  country  when  it 
becomes  necessary  for  the  conservative  elements  to  take  the 
law  into  their  own  hands,  in  the  absence  of  proper  judicial 
machinery,  lest  the  community  fall  into  a  state  of  utter  law 
lessness  and  anarchy,  has  been  admitted  ever  since  lynch 
law  brought  order  out  of  chaos  in  San  Francisco  in  1849.  But 
it  has  similarly  been  recognized  that  even  this  wild  justice, 
when  set  afoot,  must  follow  a  certain  procedure ;  that  commit- 


'MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         171 

tees  of  safety  or  vigilance  should  be  formed  and  a  kind  of 
drum-head  trial  be  instituted  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the 
accused  men  some  opportunity  to  be  heard  in  their  own  de 
fence.  History  shows,  moreover,  that  lynch  law  should  only 
be  proclaimed  and  obeyed  for  the  briefest  of  periods,  lest  the 
second  state  be  worse  than  the  first;  and  that,  even  when  in 
stituted,  public  proceedings  on  the  part  of  the  self-appointed 
regulators  are  essential,  both  in  order  to  make  the  punish 
ments  as  deterrent  as  possible,  and  to  persuade  the  commu 
nity  that  it  is  justice,  however  rude,  that  is  being  dispensed. 
In  Kansas  in  1856  the  situation  was  different  from  that  of 
California  in  1849-50,  in  that  most  of  the  existing  lawless 
ness  had  its  origin  largely  in  the  national  politics  of  the  day. 
That  there  were  the  same  rude  and  dangerous  characters  to  be 
found  on  every  frontier  is  proved  by  the  recital  of  the  crimes 
committed  in  Kansas  prior  to  the  Pottawatomie  murders.  In 
the  case  of  Kansas,  the  high  character  of  part  of  the  emigra 
tion  was  offset  by  the  lawless  character  of  the  Border  Ruffians. 
Slavery  itself  tended  to  that  overbearing  lawlessness  which 
is  inevitable  wherever  the  fate  of  a  dark-colored  people  is 
placed  unreservedly  in  the  hands  of  whites.  It  was  the  spirit 
of  intolerance  and  lawlessness  bred  by  slavery  which  dictated 
the  destruction  of  Lawrence  and  made  the  abuse  of  the  ballot- 
boxes  seem  proper  and  justifiable.  But,  granting  that  there 
was  friction  full  of  grave  possibilities  between  a  handful  of  the 
pro-slavery  settlers  on  the  Pottawatomie  and  their  Free  Soil 
neighbors,  it  is  by  no  means  clear  either  that  the  conditions 
prior  to  the  killings  were  so  grave  as  to  demand  the  establish 
ment  of  martial  law,  or  that  they  called  for  the  installation 
of  vigilance  committees  to  inflict  extreme  penalties  upon 
the  desperadoes.  Not  a  single  person  had  been  killed  in  the 
region  around  Osawatomie,  either  by  the  lawless  characters 
or  by  armed  representatives  of  the  pro-slavery  cause.  The 
instances  of  brutality  or  murder  narrated  in  the  preceding 
chapters  all  took  place  miles  to  the  north,  in  the  vicinity 
of  Lawrence  or  Leaven  worth.  Beyond  doubt  the  publica 
tion  of  these  atrocities  inflamed  not  only  the  Browns,  but 
kindled  the  anger  and  curdled  the  blood  of  every  Free  Soil 
settler  who  read  of  them.  Yet  the  companies  that  set  forth 
from  Osawatomie  to  Lawrence  deemed  it  quite  safe  to  leave 


172  JOHN  BROWN 

the  settlements  to  themselves,  despite  the  character  of  the 
Shermans  and  the  Doyles  and  certain  occurrences  that  might 
well  have  given  ground  for  uneasiness. 

What  those  occurrences  were  becomes  of  great  importance, 
because  many  loose  statements  about  them  have  been  brought 
forward  from  time  to  time  as  affording  ample  justification 
for  the  Pottawatomie  blood-letting.  The  most  careful  search 
for  and  weighing  of  many  testimonies,  contemporary  and 
reminiscent,  establishes  in  the  neighborhood  of  Osawatomie 
only  five  definite  pro-slavery  offences,  after  hearsay  recollec 
tions  and  wholly  unsubstantiated  stories  are  eliminated.  It 
seems  to  be  established  beyond  doubt  that  Poindexter  Manes, 
a  Free  Soil  settler,  was  knocked  down  and  beaten  for  having 
a  New  York  Tribune  in  his  pocket.66  Less  well  substantiated 
is  the  case  of  one  Baker,  a  Vermonter,  living  on  the  Pottawato 
mie,  who  was  taken  from  his  cabin  and  strung  up  to  a  tree, 
but  who  was  cut  down  in  time  to  save  his  life.  There  is  no 
record  of  his  assailants,  nor  can  the  time  be  accurately  fixed 
beyond  that  it  was  in  the  month  of  April.57  To  the  Doyles 
and  Shermans  is  attributed  the  frightening  of  a  woman  named 
Holmes,  who  was  nearing  confinement,  by  the  brandishing 
of  a  knife  and  the  demand  that  she  reveal  the  whereabouts 
of  the  men  of  her  family.  It  is  variously  stated  that  she  died 
and  that  she  "came  near  dying,"  in  consequence.58  Along  the 
same  line  and  more  important  is  the  statement  that  "Dutch 
Bill,"  in  the  absence  of  the  men  on  their  trip  to  Lawrence, 
entered  the  cabin  of  John  T.  Grant  and  attempted  an  assault 
upon  the  person  of  Mary  Grant,  his  daughter.  This  story  is 
the  basis  for  the  allegation  that  a  messenger  reached  John 
Brown  in  the  first  night's  camp,  near  Prairie  City,  and  re 
ported  the  attack  upon  Mary  Grant,  and  that  the  persons  of 
the  women  of  his  own  family  had  been  threatened.  Fortu 
nately,  Mary  Grant,  as  well  as  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  is  still 
alive.*  The  latter  states  positively  that  the  women  of  the 
settlement  were  never  harmed.59  In  this  she  is  emphatically 
borne  out  by  a  contemporary  declaration  of  Jason  Brown  in 
a  letter  to  North  Elba  on  June  28,  1856,  a  month  after  the 
killings:  "No  women  have  been  injured  yet;  so  far  as  I  know. 
Some  of  the  five  pro-slavery  men  who  were  killed  had  threat- 
*  Since  the  above  was  written,  Mary  Grant  Brown  has  died. 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        173 

ened  the  lives  of  Free  State  men  near  them;  and  also  to  cut 
the  throat  of  a  young  woman,  a  neighbor."60  As  Jason 
Brown's  wife  was  with  him  in  Kansas,  it  is  only  natural  to 
suppose  that  if  her  safety  and  that  of  his  sister-in-law  had 
been  in  danger,  he  would  have  reported  it.  Salmon  Brown 
affirms  that  :  "The  statement  that  women  were  in  any  way 
molested  is  entirely  without  foundation."  Mary  Grant,  the 
young  woman  neighbor,  whose  throat  was  threatened  at  the 
time,  a  remarkably  pretty  and  attractive  young  woman,  who 
had  never  feared  to  go  freely  to  Wilkinson's  post-office  and 
to  meet  there  the  Doyles  and  Shermans,  told  recently  this 
story  of  her  experience  with  "Dutch  Bill,"  which  experience 
is  the  sole  basis  for  the  fabrication  that  John  Brown  was 
recalled  because  Free  State  women  were  in  danger: 61 

"Dutch  Bill  arrived  at  our  house,  one  day,  horribly  drunk,  with 
a  whiskey  bottle  with  a  corncob  stopper,  and  an  immense  butcher 
knife  in  his  belt.  Mr.  Grant,  my  father,  was  sick  in  bed,  but  when 
they  told  him  that  Bill  Sherman  was  coming,  in  that  state,  he  said : 
'Put  my  shot  gun  beside  the  bed.'  There  was  also  a  neighbor  pre 
sent,  who  was  armed.  'Old  woman,'  said  Bill  Sherman  to  my  mo 
ther,  '  you  and  I  are  pretty  good  friends,  but  damn  your  daughter. 
I  '11  drink  her  heart's  blood.'  Yet  my  little  brother  Charley,  a  mere 
boy  of  twelve  or  fourteen,  succeeded  in  cajoling  him  away  without 
violence." 

This  story,  says  Mary  Grant  (Mrs.  Mary  E.  Brown,  of  San 
Jose*,  California),  Frederick  Brown  asked  her  for  again  and 
again,  before  the  men  marched  to  Lawrence.  It  is  thus  clear 
that  the  episode  was  in  itself  precisely  what  might  happen 
in  any  isolated  settlement  which  contained  a  drunken,  worth 
less  settler,  and  that  it  was  known  to  at  least  one  Brown  long 
before  the  sudden  start  for  Lawrence.  Jason  Brown  relates 
it  in  his  letter  in  its  proper  proportions.  Mrs.  B.  F.  Jackson, 
a  resident  of  Osawatomie  at  the  time,  also  testifies  62  that 
she  never  heard  of  any  of  the  women  of  Osawatomie  or 
Pottawatomie  being  troubled;  yet  news  of  attacks  on  them, 
had  such  occurred,  must  have  travelled  faster  and  made  a 
more  lasting  impression  upon  the  women  of  the  frontier  than 
anything  else.  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  although  Gihon  makes  wholesale  charges  of  rape  against 
the  Border  Ruffians,63  Mrs.  Charles  Robinson,  than  whom  the 


174  JOHN  BROWN 

Ruffians  have  never  had  a  severer  critic,  states  that  she  knows 
of  only  a  single  case  of  criminal  assault  upon  women  during 
Kansas's  troubled  times.  This  case  she  records  in  her  book 
as  having  occurred  in  August,  1856,  or  months  after  the  Potta- 
watomie  massacre.64  Similar  favorable  testimony  is  given  by 
many  other  women,  who  were  early  settlers,  when  asked  this 
specific  question.  In  all  the  mass  of  material  accumulated  by 
the  Kansas  Historical  Society,  there  is  not  a  proved  instance 
of  Border  Ruffian  misconduct  of  this  kind,  unless  we  except 
that  cited  by  Mrs.  Robinson  and  the  case  of  two  sisters  who 
lived  five  miles  northwest  of  Lawrence,  which  is  reported 
in  the  Tribune  of  June  9,  1856,  on  the  not  always  reliable 
authority  of  James  Redpath.  What  frontier  settlement  in  a 
time  of  great  excitement  and  unrest  can  show  a  better  record? 
It  must  be  noted,  too,  that  whereas  elsewhere  there  might 
have  been  a  natural  desire  to  suppress  such  facts,  there  were 
plenty  of  correspondents  besides  Redpath  eager  for  such  ter 
rible  happenings  with  which  to  blacken  the  case  against  the 
Border  Ruffians  and  stir  more  Northerners  to  coming  to  the 
rescue  of  Free  Kansas. 

A  fifth  Missouri  outrage  is  directly  brought  home  by  the 
Grant  family  to  Wilkinson,  the  Shermans  and  Doyles.  This 
was  the  case  of  an  old  man  named  Morse,  from  Michigan, 
who  had  sold  lead  for  bullets  to  the  Browns.  As  George  Grant 
narrates  the  story, x 

"The  next  morning,  after  the  company  had  started  to  go  to 
Lawrence,  a  number  of  these  proslavery  men,  Wilkinson,  Doyle, 
his  two  sons,  and  William  Sherman,  known  as  '  Dutch  Bill '  -  -  took 
a  rope  and  were  going  to  hang  him  [Morse]  for  selling  the  lead  to 
the  Free  State  men.  They  frightened  the  old  man  terribly;  and 
finally  told  him  he  must  leave  the  country  before  eleven  o'clock, 
or  they  would  hang  him.  They  then  left  and  went  to  the  Shermans 
and  went  to  drinking.  About  eleven  o'clock  a  portion  of  them,  half 
drunk,  went  back  to  Mr.  Morse's  and  were  going  to  kill  him  with 
an  axe.  His  little  boys  —  one  was  only  nine  years  old  —  set  up  a 
violent  crying,  and  begged  for  their  father's  life.  They  finally  gave 
him  until  sundown  to  leave.  He  left  everything  and  came  at  once 
to  our  house.  He  was  nearly  frightened  to  death.  He  came  to  our 
house  carrying  a  blanket  and  leading  his  little  boy  by  the  hand. 
When  night  came  he  was  so  afraid  that  he  would  not  stay  in  the 
house,  but  went  out  doors  and  slept  on  the  prairie  in  the  grass. 
For  a  few  days  he  lay  about  in  the  brush,  most  of  the  time  getting 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        175 

his  meals  at  our  house.  He  was  then  taken  violently  ill  and  died 
in  a  very  short  time.  Dr.  Gilpatrick  attended  him  during  his  brief 
illness,  and  said  that  his  death  was  directly  caused  by  the  fright 
and  excitement  of  that  terrible  day  when  he  was  driven  from  his 
store."65 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  threats  to  Morse  were  made  the 
day  after  the  company  had  gone,  or  on  Friday.  It  is  per 
fectly  plain,  therefore,  that  no  news  of  this  could  have  reached 
John  Brown  in  camp  near  Prairie  City  before  two  o'clock  of 
the  same  day,  when  he  started  back  in  Townsley's  wagon, 
bent  on  the  killings.  Furthermore,  there  was  no  communica 
tion  between  his  party,  as  it  lay  in  the  timber  between  the 
ravines  on  the  day  of  the  killing,  and  the  settlements.  What 
ever  else  may  have  actuated  John  Brown,  it  was  not  the  at 
tack  upon  the  old  man,  Morse,  of  which  he  knew  nothing,  not 
even  if  a  messenger  bearing  stories  of  threatened  outrage  on 
the  Pottawatomie  reached  Brown  on  that  one  morning  in 
camp  when  the  cutlasses  were  being  ground. 

This  question  of  the  alleged  messenger  bringing  news  of  the 
threats  against  the  Free  Soil  settlers  is  one  that  has  deeply 
agitated  the  apologists  for  and  critics  of  John  Brown.  The 
identity  of  this  Mercury  has  never  been  established.  He  is 
variously  thought  to  have  been  "Bondi  or  some  one  sent 
by  him"  —  according  to  George  Grant;  or  Weiner,  accord 
ing  to  O.  C.  Brown  and  John  Hutchings.  Townsley  and  Judge 
Hanway  were  sure  that  George  Grant  himself  was  the  mes 
senger,  but  as  George  Grant  denies  this  and  points  out  that 
he  marched  out  with  the  Pottawatomie  Rifles,  this  guess 
must  be  eliminated.  H.  H.  Williams,  on  January  20,  1883, 
wrote  to  R.  J.  Hinton  that  he  was  the  messenger.  Unfortu 
nately  for  this  theory,  his  own  contemporary  letter  to  the 
Tribune,  written  within  two  months  of  the  killings,  proves 
that  he  went  up  toward  Lawrence  not  as  a  messenger  but  as 
first  lieutenant  of  the  Pottawatomie  Rifles,  for  he  relates 
various  incidents  of  the  night  march.  Among  others  who  af 
firm  that  there  was  a  messenger  are  John  Brown,  Jr.,  August 
Bondi,  J.  F.  Legate,  Samuel  Anderson,  Mary  Grant,  J.  G. 
Grant  and  C.  S.  Adair;  but  none  of  them  has  a  clue  to  his  iden 
tity.  Salmon  Brown,  on  the  other  hand,  is  positive  that  there 
was  no  messenger.  So  is  Colonel  James  Blood.  If  there  was 


i;6  JOHN  BROWN 

a  messenger  who  reached  camp  on  Friday  morning,  he  could 
only  have  had  later  news  by  two  or  three  hours  than  the 
men  of  the  Pottawatomie  Rifles  themselves  brought,  for  they 
marched  from  the  cross-roads  near  Osawatomie  at  six  p.  M., 
and  were  not  much  over  six  hours  in  camp  the  next  day  be 
fore  John  Brown  left  on  his  way  back.  If  the  company  had 
received  tidings  revealing  grave  danger  to  their  women  and 
children  at  home,  it  is  incredible  that  they  would  not  have 
returned  at  once  with  John  Brown,  to  protect  their  families. 
Instead,  they  were  content  to  remain  idly  in  camp  for  two 
days.  If  Colonel  Blood's  narrative  of  meeting  Townsley's 
wagon-load  is  true,  it  is  again  astonishing  that  John  Brown 
never  inquired  of  him  what  had  happened  during  their  twenty- 
four  hours'  absence.  Had  they  done  so,  Blood  could  have 
told  Brown  that  when  he  himself  rode  through  the  Pottawa 
tomie  settlement  that  afternoon,  he  found  the  place  perfectly 
quiet,  the  only  excitement  relating  to  Lawrence;  that  a  few 
men  were  in  the  fields  and  the  women  and  children  were  about 
the  cabins.66  But  the  height  of  absurdity  is  the  supposition 
that  eight  able-bodied  men,  heavily  armed,  would  spend  all 
of  one  night  and  the  whole  of  the  next  day,  Saturday,  in  the 
timber  between  two  ravines  near  Pottawatomie  Creek  with 
out  stirring  to  inquire  how  the  Brown  kinsmen  and  kins 
women,  the  Adairs,  the  Days,  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and 
Mrs.  Jason  Brown,  were  faring  during  the  twenty-four  hours 
between  the  return  and  the  murders,  if  these  relatives  were 
known  to  be  in  danger.  If  the  killings  were  due  to  any  sudden 
alarm  that  the  creek  was  to  be  cleared  of  all  Free  State  set 
tlers,  then  the  eight  men  were  craven,  indeed,  to  spend  this 
day  without  scouting  the  neighborhood.  This  supposition  is 
incredible  in  view  of  John  Brown's  known  bravery.  His 
men  hid  because  they  did  not  wish  their  connection  with  the 
murders  known,  and  after  the  crime  they  returned  stealthily 
to  Ottawa  Jones's  without  having  troubled  any  one  with  a 
question  as  to  the  fate  of  the  unguarded  women  and  children 
of  their  comrades  of  the  Pottawatomie  Rifles. 

The  truth  must  be  that  John  Brown  decided  on  the  mur 
ders  because  of  some  general  reason  or  previous  conviction 
that  it  was  necessary  to  remove  the  victims,  and  not  because 
of  any  sudden  news.  As  to  the  messenger,  there  was  none; 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         177 

the  reports  of  threats  to  Free  State  settlers  made  by  the  Sher 
mans  and  Doyles,  which  were  undoubtedly  talked  of  in  the 
camp  and  hastened  John  Brown's  action,  were  brought  in 
not  by  any  one  man  or  any  two  men,  but  by  Bondi,  Weiner, 
Townsley  and  others  of  the  Rifles.  H.  H.  Williams,  in  his 
contemporary  letter,  records  that  he  rode  ten  miles  up  and 
down  the  creek  to  call  his  company  together,  and  that  thirty- 
four  men  had  come  from  various  distances  by  six  P.  M.  to 
the  rendezvous.  As  they  marched  that  night,  they  doubtless 
exchanged  news  and  gossip ;  the  story  about  "Dutch  Bill "  and 
Mary  Grant  may  have  been  magnified  in  the  telling  and  re 
telling  and  reached  many  ears  for  the  first  time  as  the  little 
column  stumbled  forward  over  the  dark  roads,  while  the  excite 
ment  of  the  hour  probably  led  some  of  the  men  to  think  that 
"Dutch  Bill's"  drunken  threat  had  just  been  uttered. 

To  find  the  reason  and  the  excuse  for  the  cold-blooded 
murder  of  the  Doyles,  Sherman  and  Wilkinson,  we  must, 
therefore,  look  elsewhere.  The  Grants67  and  others  tell  of  a 
meeting  at  "Dutch  Henry's,"  immediately  after  the  depar 
ture  of  the  Rifles,  at  which  the  subsequently  murdered  men 
swore  to  drive  out  all  the  Free  State  settlers  within  a  given 
time  and  reduce  their  houses  to  ashes.  On  the  other  hand, 
Salmon  Brown  declares  positively  that  "it  was  not  the  re 
port  of  any  such  meeting  specifically  that  started  us  off  to 
Pottawatomie."  Nor,  as  we  have  seen,  could  the  news  of  this 
meeting  have  reached  the  camp  near  Prairie  City  before 
John  Brown  started  for  home.  That  the  meeting  occurred, 
the  Grants  are  positive,  but  it,  too,  must  be  discarded  as  a 
motive  for  the  bloody  deed  on  the  Pottawatomie. 

There  remains,  then,  the  question  how  far  the  threats 
against  the  Browns,  heard  in  the  Buford  camp,  and  those 
made  against  the  Free  State  settlers  on  the  Pottawatomie  as 
a  whole,  were  the  controlling  reason  for  the  crime.  It  is  im 
possible  to  avoid  the  belief  that  they  were  a  most  important 
factor  in  moving  John  Brown  to  adopt  Border  Ruffian  tac 
tics.  Salmon  Brown  declares  that  his  father  and  the  others 
were  well  aware  that  the  pro-slavery  men  of  the  Doyle-Sher 
man  type  had  decided  on  extreme  measures  against  them. 
The  stories  of  Bondi,  Weiner,  Benjamin  and  Townsley  all 
had  their  effect  upon  the  Browns.  According  to  Horace  Haskell 


178  JOHN  BROWN 

Day,  son  of  Orson  Day,  when  his  father  went  to  Werner's 
store,  which  was  just  one  and  a  half  miles  from  the  Doyles' 
cabin,  he  found  a  notice  up  that  all  Free  State  men  must  get 
off  the  creek  within  thirty  days,  or  have  their  throats  cut. 
Weiner  said  to  Mr.  Day:  "We  ought  to  cut  their  throats." 
Mr.  Day  not  consenting,  Weiner  said:  "That  is  the  way  we 
serve  them  in  Texas,"  —  from  which  place  he  had  come.68 
Orson  Day  being  a  brother-in-law  of  John  Brown  and  resid 
ing  directly  opposite  John  Brown,  Jr.,  it  would  have  been 
easy  for  him  to  repeat  this  happening  to  his  relatives.  There 
are  witnesses  like  Mr.  M.  V.  B.  Jackson,  who  heard  from 
Weiner,  Bondi  and  Townsley  direct  the  threats  made  against 
them.  Mr.  Jackson  testifies  that  three  days  was  the  time  of 
grace  allowed  to  Weiner,  Benjamin  and  Bondi,  at  the  expira 
tion  of  which  they  were  to  leave  under  pain  of  lynch  law.69 
John  B.  Manes  is  another  witness  to  Benjamin's  being  warned. 
"I  know,"  he  has  affirmed,70  "that  there  was  a  reign  of  ter 
ror,  of  which  the  men  who  were  killed  were  the  authors;  and 
I  am  surprised  that  any  one  should  believe  that  the  killing  of 
these  men  was  without  reasonable  excuse."  He  asks  whether 
the  Free  State  men  were  to  abandon  Kansas,  or  to  fold  their 
arms  and  await  martrydom  when  their  days  of  grace  expired. 
Or  were  they  to  slay  the  would-be  murderers,  to  save  them 
selves?  Here  again  the  question  recurs:  If  John  Brown  knew 
of  the  notice  posted  in  Weiner's  store,  and  was  also  aware 
that  the  pro-slavery  men  had  given  the  Free  Soil  settlers 
but  three  or  five  days  in  which  to  leave,  why  did  he  march 
off  to  Lawrence  leaving  the  women  and  children  defenceless 
and  the  Doyles  and  Shermans  free  to  do  their  worst?  He 
could  not  know  that  he  would  be  free  to  return  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  for  the  fate  of  Lawrence  was  not  learned  until  the 
company  had  marched  twenty-five  miles.  For  all  any  of  the 
men  could  foresee,  they  might  be  going  off  on  a  campaign 
that  would  last  for  some  days  —  perhaps  even  weeks. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  too,  that  threats  of  slicing  a  man's 
throat,  or  cutting  his  heart  out,  or  driving  him  away,  were  the 
cheapest  and  most  conspicuous  product  of  Border  Ruffian 
activity.  Every  drunken  pro-slavery  man  had  a  quiver-full 
of  them.  The  Squatter  Sovereign  has  them  on  every  page;  the 
blasphemy  and  promises  of  extermination  that  marked  the 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         179 

harangues  of  Atchison,  Jones  and  men  of  that  stamp  are  to  be 
found  broadcast  in  the  files  of  the  Tribune  and  the  volumes 
of  Gladstone,  Redpath,  Phillips,  Sara  Robinson  and  the  other 
contemporary  Free  Soil  writers.  The  threats  uttered  on  the 
Pottawatomie  must  have  been  convincing,  indeed,  to  incite 
John  Brown  to  do  what  the  Border  Ruffians  only  talked  of 
doing.  But  this  merely  adds  to  the  mystery  why  the  appeal 
of  Lawrence  should  have  taken  precedence  over  the  safety  of 
Pottawatomie,  as  does  the  affirmation  of  Jason  Brown  that 
a  friendly  pro-slavery  man  had  given  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Adair 
a  list  of  those  whose  deaths  had  been  agreed  upon  by  his 
pro-slavery  friends,  —  a  story  of  which  Mr.  Adair  has  left  no 
written  record  to  aid  his  kinsman's  reputation.71 

What  did  John  Brown  himself  ever  assign  as  the  reason? 
According  to  E.  A.  Coleman,  Brown,  by  means  of  his  surveying 
disguise,  obtained  the  views  of  the  murdered  men  and  found 
that  they  "had  each  one  committed  murder  in  his  heart  and 
according  to  the  Scriptures  they  were  guilty  of  murder  and 
I  felt  justified  in  having  them  killed.'*  These  words  Cole 
man  places  in  John  Brown's  mouth; 72  they  are  confirmed  by 
Colonel  Edward  Anderson's  report  of  Brown's  statement  to 
him  that  the  murdered  men  were  planning  to  "wipe  out  the 
Free  Soil  settlers." 73  According  to  Coleman's  story,  therefore, 
Brown,  assuming  the  powers  of  judge  or  military  autocrat, 
adjudged  the  Doyles,  Shermans  and  Wilkinson  deserving  of 
death  because  they  had  had  murder  in  their  hearts.  If  this 
version  be  accepted,  we  must  decide  that  John  Brown  be 
lieved  planning  murder  to  be  worse  than  murder  itself.  We" 
have  here  a  most  extraordinary  confusion  of  ethics  and  morals. 
Granting  that  persecution,  and  even  murders,  had  followed 
similar  threats  in  other  portions  of  Kansas,  and  that  the  ter 
rible  happenings  in  the  Territory  were  ever  present  in  John 
Brown's  brain,  one  cannot  but  wonder  that  he  assumed  to 
himself  the  functions  of  chief  executioner  and  deemed  himself 
the  one  to  say  just  when  and  how  the  Sixth  Commandment, 
"Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  should  be  violated.  He  was  not  content 
merely  to  defend  Free  State  homes  arid  patrol  the  roads;  it 
did  not  occur  to  him  to  form  a  vigilance  committee  and  warn 
the  pro-slavery  rascals  to  cease  from  troubling  and  remove 
from  the  neighborhood,  as  did  in  another  year  James  Mont- 


I8o  JOHN  BROWN 

Agomery,  in  Linn  County;  he  was  not  even  content  to  leave  to 
(the  Almighty,  to  whom  he  nightly  prayed,  that  vengeance 
I  which  the  Lord  has  reserved  as  His. 

But  there  are  plenty  of  other  excuses  offered  for  the  crime, 
f  after  the  various  motives  we  have  examined  are  discarded. 
(  It  is  pointed  out  that  there  was  no  law  for  Free  Soil  men  in 
^  the  Territory,  —  only  Catos  and  Lecomptes  on  the  bench  to 
dispense  injustice.  There  was  no  legal  road  to  safety.  It  is 
averred  that  the  Free  Soil  settlers  were  few,  half  starved,  sick 
and  intimidated,  grown  so  spiritless,  the  lack  of  resistance  at 
Lawrence  indicated,  as  to  call  for  some  deed  of  violence  to 
rouse  them  from  their  helpless  inertia.  To  prove  to  the  Border 
Ruffians  that  they  could  no  longer  destroy  and  murder  with 
impunity,  such  a  terrible  warning  as  that  given  at  Pottawato- 
mie  was,  therefore,  absolutely  necessary.  Again,  it  is  insisted 
that  John  Brown's  foresight,  his  consecrated  sagacity  and 
devotionjip  the  cause,  made  him  strike  tEe  blow  in  order  JQ 
force  cnerftc[  take  sides,  in  order  to  bring  on  the  righteous  and 
necessary  war  which,  to  John^Brpwn,  was  the  sole  solution 
jpf  the  issue  in  Kansas.  If  ^this  conflicts  with  the  widely  held 
theory  that  the  Pottawatomie  killings,  by  ending  the  outrages 
nTthe  neighborhood  of  Qsawatomie  and  stopping  theja^gres- 
siveness  of  the  Border  Ruffians,  was  a  peace  measure,  it  does 
jtiot  deter  many  from  excusing  the  crime  as  an  act  of  war  exe 
cuted  in  war  time.  The  dogs  of  war,  it  is  argued,  had  been 'let 
slip  by  Jones  and  Donaldson,  and  as  the  Doyles,  Shermans 
and  Wilkinson  were  spies  and  informers  in  league  with  the 
enemy,  they  richly  merited  their  fate,  which  came  only  just 
in  time  to  save  the  Osawatomie  settlers  from  general  expul 
sion,  if  not  murder.  Then,  too,  it  was  said  to  be  but  a  just 
act  of  retaliation  for  the  sack  of  Lawrence  and  retribution  for 
the  killing  of  R.  P.  Brown,  Dow,  Barber,  Stewart,  Jones  and 
Collins;  it  is  even  alleged,  by  miscounting  these  six  victims  of 
Border  Ruffian  violence,  that  John  Brown  was  not  eager  to 
kill  Dutch  Henry,  but  chose  his  five  victims  as  a  deliberate 
offset  to  the  five  Free  Soilers  killed  up  to  that  time.  Next,  it 
is  asserted  that  John  Brown  was  merely  carrying  out  the 
orders  of  Free  Soil  leaders  who,  for  motives  of  policy,  did  not 
admit  at  the  time  that  this  killing  was  done  with  their  con 
nivance  and  consent.  Finally,  it  is  averred  by  at  least  one 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        181 

biographer  that  John  Brown  was  divinely  inspired,  —  God- 
driven  to  this  dire  act,  because  the  Deity  "makes  His  will 
known  in  advance  to  certain  chosen  men  and  women  who 
perform  it  consciously  or  unconsciously." 

Into  this  field  of  theological  speculation  the  historian  unfor 
tunately  cannot  enter;  he  is  limited  to  judging  or  recording 
human  motives,  particularly  as  this  theory  of  divine  inspira 
tion  has  for  centuries  been  the  excuse  for  many  of  the  most! 
terrible  crimes  in  history.  More  capable  of  critical  examina 
tion  is  the  argument  that  there  existed  no  law  and  no  courts 
for  Free  State  men;  but  if  the  absence  of  law  and  just  courts 
sanctions  midnight  assassination,  the  world  is  far  behindhand 
with  its  canonizations.  The  road  to  legal  safety  under  such 
conditions  does  not  lead  by  the  way  of  private  vengeance;  the 
sole  substitute  is,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  lynch  law 
openly  proclaimed  and  openly  administered.  That  the  Potta 
watomie  murders  cannot  be  both  a  peace  and  a  war  measure 
is  obvious.  Unfortunately,  as  will  be  set  forth  wiien  the  conse 
quences  of  the  crime  are  examined,  the  evidence  shows  that 
it  neither  ended  the  attacks  upon  individuals  nor  stopped 
the  raids  of  large  armed  bodies,  as  has  been  alleged  by  many 
writers,  including  John  Speer.  He  declared,  January  30,  1886, 
that  "the  spirit  of  murder  was  checked,"  74  while  F.  G. 
Adams,  Secretary  of  the  Kansas  Historical  Society,  on  Octo 
ber  25,  1883,  averred  of  Brown's  killings  that  they  "put  an 
end  to  the  assassination  of  Free  State  men  for  all  time,"  75  — 
as  if,  for  example,  Frederick  Brown  and  David  Garrison  were 
not  shot  down  like  dogs  on  August  30,  1856,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  cold-blooded  murders  after  Pottawatomie  of  Hoppe, 
Cantrall,  Hoyt,  Gay  and  William  Phillips,  and  almost  num 
berless  assaults  upon  persons  and  attacks  upon  private  pro 
perty.  These  might,  it  is  true,  have  continued  had  John 
Brown  struck  no  blow  at  Pottawatomie,  for  the  Border  Ruf 
fians  were  drunk  with  their  success  in  looting  Lawrence;  but 
it  certainly  cannot  be  true  that  they  were  "stopped"  by  t^e 
assassinations.  But  as  a  war  measure,  John  Brown's  murders1 
were  beyond  doubt  successful;  they  were  actually  followecl 
by  more  killings  of  Free  State  men  than  had  taken  place 
previously  in  the  Territory;  they  led  to  the  burning  of  Osa- 
watomie  and  other  settlements,  to  attacks  upon  the  Border 


182  JOHN  BROWN 

Ruffian  "forts,"  and  to  the  stand-up  fighting  at  Black  Jack 
and  Osawatomie.  If  John  Brown  intended  to  set  men  at  each 
others'  throats,  to  make  every  man  take  sides,  to  bring  mat 
ters  in  Kansas  to  a  head,  he  was  wholly  successful  when  he 
lived  up  to  the  Biblical  doctrine  he  often  quoted,  that  "  with 
out  'the  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sin." 
—  As  to  the  theory  that  John  Brown  was  directed  by  higher 
authorities  in  the  Free  State  ranks,  the  best  evidence  is  a 
recently  discovered  letter  from  Samuel  C.  Pomeroy  to  Re 
becca  B.  Spring,  written  in  Georgetown,  D.  C.,  January  16, 
1860,  just  after  Brown's  execution,  when  the  events  of  1856 
should  have  been  fresh  in  his  memory,  and  here  first  printed  : 

"I  am  waiting  here  quietly  to  see  the  progress  of  Mason's  'In 
vestigating  Committee.'  They  have  declined  to  summon  me  —  or 
any  other  man,  who  dare  under  oath,  defend  John  Brown!  !  I  dont 
care  what  are  the  consequences  to  me  politically,  I  will,  upon  the 
first  occasion,  at  the  Capitol  of  this  country  —  defend  that  old  man, 
who  offered  up  himself  gloriously  —  from  the  charge  or  crime  of 
murder  !  No  blow  had  been  struck  by  any  one  of  us  —  up  to  May 
2 1st,  1856.  I  was  in  command  as  Chairman  of  the  'Committee  of 
Public  Safety,'  at  Lawrence,  upon  that  memorable  occasion. 

"I  insisted  —  though  our  Town  was  threatened  with  destruction 
—  and  the  invading  army  was  then  within  12  miles  of  Town !  and 
numbered  over  1200  men  —  well  armed  —  That  we  should  give 
the  Government  a  fair  opportunity  to  protect  us,  And  to  this  end  I 
applied  to  those  in  authority.  But  in  the  course  of  that  day  I  found 
that  the  Government  was  yielded  to  the  'border  Ruffians.'  —  I  still 
insisted  (though  against  the  earnest  appeal  of  John  Brown  &  his 
men)  that  the  government  should  commit  the  first  overt  act.  And  I 
told  them,  then  and  there,  that  so  soon  as  I  could  demonstrate  before 
this  Country  that  the  Government  was  powerless  for  protection, 
Then  I  was  with  them,  for  taking  care  of  ourselves  I  So  we  stood  still, 
upon  that  day  and  saw  our  Presses  &  buildings  madly  destroyed.  The 
few  monuments  of  our  civilization,  which  had  been  hastily  erected, 
were  strewn  to  the  winds,  or  consumed  in  the  flames  ! 

"Upon  the  morning  of  the  22nd  of  May  we  called  a  little  meeting 

—  of  sad  but  earnest  men.  Taking  each  other  by  the  hand  we  con- 

venanted,  each  with  the  other,  that  what  there  was  left  to  us  in  this 

life,  and  if  need  be,  all  we  hoped  for  in  the  life  to  come,  should  now 

be  offered  up,  to  the  FREEDOM  of  KANSAS,  and  the  country. 

"A  poorly  written  badly  spelled  note,  passed  round  that  meeting 
that  Doyl,  Wilkinson,  Sherman,  and  others  upon  the  Pottawatomie 
Creek,  had  insulted  the  females  of  one  family,  whose  head  was  then 
present,  and  warned  others  under  pain  of  death  to  leave  the  Terri- 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        183 

tory  by  the  25th  lnst.,that  very  week!  What  could  I  say?  Or~do? 
I  had  withheld  our  impatient  men,  until  before  us  lay  the  smoking 
ruins  of  the  home  we  loved  the  best,  of  any  spot  upon  earth. 

"You  know  what  was  said  and  'did.1  As  the  Government  af 
forded  no  protection  to  us,  even  when  we  placed  ourselves  under 
its  special  protection,  it  was  then  and  there  Resolved  —  that  every 
man  be  [we  ?]  met  that  invaded  or  threatened  our  lives,  or  homes, 
or  our  families  &  friends,  should  without  delay  of  law  or  courts,  or 
officers,  be  driven  to  Missouri  or  to  death  !  ! 

"We  separated  that  morning,  each  to  the  great  work  of  life,  viz. 
to  do  his  duty  —  to  himself  —  to  his  country  &  to  his  God.  John 
Brown  did  not  personly  go  the  whole  distance  with  the  party  that 
went  down  upon  Pottawatomy  creek.  But  he  approved  of  the  course 
decided  upon  for  action,  —  and  SO  DID  I !  And  I  am  not  now  going 
to  repudiate  old  Brown,  or  to  shrink  from  the  responsibility! 

"He  did  not  commit  the  'murders'  as  they  are  called,  but  we  all 
then  endorsed  them,  —  and  from  that  hour  the  invaders  fled.  That 
one  act  struck  terror  into  the  hearts  of  our  enemies,  and  gave  us  the 
dawning  of  success!  Those  deaths  I  have  no  doubt  saved  a  multi 
tude  of  lives,  and  was  the  cheapest  sacrifice  that  could  be  offered!"  w 

Unfortunately  for  the  accuracy  of  this  statement,  we  know 
now  that  neither  the  Brown  women  nor  those  of  the  Grant 
family  were  insulted.  The  testimonies  of  fifty- two  witnesses 
of  value  in  connection  with  the  Pottawatomie  murders  have 
been  examined  for  light  on  this  subject.  Pomeroy  is  the  only 
one  to  suggest  that  John  Brown  was  in  Lawrence  on  May  21 
and  22,  with  the  exception  of  Daniel  W.  Wilder,  who  even  adds 
that  he  was  there  with  six  sons  and  his  son-in-law.77  It  is  not 
conceivable  that  John  Brown  could  have  been  there  and  have 
fired  no  shot  to  defend  the  town.  Moreover,  his  surviving 
sons  and  son-in-law  know  nothing  about  it  —  Salmon  Brown 
denying  it  positively.  If  this  is  not  enough,  the  character  of 
John  Brown's  own  statements  should  suffice ;  he  would  never 
have  suppressed  the  fact  that  he  saw  Lawrence  destroyed ;  and 
finally,  the  dates  he  gives  for  his  movements  prior  to  the  mur 
ders,  corroborated  by  many  witnesses,  render  it  physically 
impossible  for  him  to  have  been  in  Lawrence  at  the  time  speci 
fied. 

The  belief  that  John  Brown  was  inspired  by  Robinson, 
Pomeroy  and  Lane  was,  however,  held  by  others.  Congress 
man  Oliver  made  the  general  charge,  in  his  minority  report  to 
the  Howard  Committee  Report,  that  Brown's  victims  "were 


184  JOHN  BROWN 

deprived  of  their  lives  ...  in  consequence  of  the  insurrec 
tionary  movements  .  .  .  set  on  foot  by  the  reckless  leaders  of 
the  Tokepa Convention/' 78 — an  allegation  not  specific  enough 
to  call  for  refutation  in  this  connection.  In  a  letter  written 
on  February  8,  1875,  Captain  Samuel  Walker  alleges  that 
Brown  complained  to  him  in  the  summer  of  1856  that  Lane 
and  Robinson  were  instigators  of  the  crime,  but  would  not  sus 
tain  him  in  it.79  Captain  Walker  also  informed  Frank  B.  San- 
born  that  Lane  and  Robinson  asked  him  to  commit  the  same 
murders,  but  that  he  indignantly  refused  to  do  so.80  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  once  charged  Robinson  in  great  detail  with  asking 
his  father  in  the  following  September  to  dispose  of  the  leading 
pro-slavery  men  by  killing,  which  request,  he  said,  was  indig 
nantly  spurned.81  Henry  Thompson  testifies  similarly.82  But 
Robinson  positively  denied  the  charge,  as  he  most  emphati 
cally  denied  any  complicity  in  the  Pottawatomie  murders. 
One  cannot  have  entire  respect  for  Governor  Robinson's 
character ;  in  this  instance  he  at  one  time  likened  John  Brown 
to  Jesus  Christ,  and  hailed  him  as  a  saviour  of  Kansas,  only 
to  turn  around  a  couple  of  years  later  and  denounce  him,  — 
even  to  speak  of  the  "punishment  due  John  Brown  for  his 
crimes  in  Kansas."83  On  the  other  hand,  John  Brown, Jr.'s 
mind  was,  unfortunately,  not  always  clear.  It  is  important  to 
remember  here  that  John  Brown  at  no  time  during  the  rest 
of  his  life  made  any  positive  statement  which  would  indicate 
that  he  was  acting  under  orders  in  doing  his  bloody  work 
at  Pottawatomie,  —  not  even  when,  in  jail  and  facing  death, 
he  was  asked  by  Judge  Russell,  of  Boston,  for  a  definite 
statement  as  to  his  responsibility  for  the  crime.84  If  he  cher 
ished  the  feeling  of  anger  against  Robinson  and  Lane  which 
Walker  declared  he  voiced  in  1856,  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
expressed  it  again. 

To  mitigate  the  abruptness  and  cruelty  of  the  tragedy,  it 
is  often  loosely  asserted  that  the  victims  were  duly  tried  by 
a  jury.  John  Sherman  stated  that  he  had  this  from  John 
Brown's  own  lips  shortly  after  the  crime.85  But  no  one  else 
avers  this,  while  the  survivors  of  the  massacre,  Henry  Thomp 
son  and  Salmon  Brown,  deny  it.  No  member  of  the  Brown 
family  has  advanced  this  theory.  The  testimony  of  Townsley 
and  the  families  of  the  murdered  men  as  to  the  speed  of  the 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE         185 

executions  and  their  taking  place  consecutively  is  also  con 
clusive,  as  is  the  fact  that  no  juryman  has  ever  been  dis 
covered. 

In  the  light  of  all  the  evidence  now  accumulated,  the  trui 
would  seem  to  be  that  John  Brown  came  to  Kansas  bringing 
arms  and  ammunition,  eager  to  fight,  and  convinced  that 
force  alone  would  save  Kansas.  He  was  under  arms  at  the 
polls  within  three  days  of  his  arrival  in  Kansas,  to  shed  blood 
to  defend  the  voters,  if  need  be,  and  he  was  bitterly  disap 
pointed  that  the  Wakarusa  "war"  ended  without  a  single 
conflict.  Thereafter  he  believed  that  a  collision  was  inevitable 
in  the  spring,  and  Jones  and  Donaldson  proved  him  to  be  cor 
rect.  Fired  with  indignation  at  the  wrongs  he  witnessed  on 
every  hand,  impelled  by  the  Covenanter's  spirit  that  made 
him  so  strange  a  figure  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  believ 
ing  fully  that  there  should  be  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for 
a  tooth,  he  killed  his  men  in  the  conscientious  belief  that  he 
was  a  faithful  servant  of  Kansas  and  of  the  Lord.  He  killed 
not  to  kill,  but  to  free;  not  to  make  wives  widows  and  children 
fatherless,  but  to  attack  on  its  own  ground  the  hideous  insti 
tution  of  human  slavery,  against  which  his  whole  life  was  a 
protest.  He  pictured  himself  a  modern  crusader  as  much  em 
powered  to  remove  the  unbeliever  as  any  armored  searcher 
after  the  Grail.  It  was  to  his  mind  a  righteous  and  necessary 
act;  if  he  concealed  his  part  in  it  and  always  took  refuge  in 
the  half-truth  that  his  own  hands  were  not  stained,  that 
was  as  near  to  a  compromise  for  the  sake  of  policy  as  this 
rigid ,  self-denying  Roundhead  ever  came.  Naturally  a  tender 
hearted  man,  he  directed  a  particularly  shocking  crime  with-! 
out  remorse,  because  the  men  killed  typified  to  him  the  slave- 
drivers  who  counted  their  victims  by  the  hundreds.  It  was  to 
him  a  necessary  carrying  into  Africa  of  the  war  in  which  he 
firmly  desired  himself  engaged.  And  always  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  his  motives  were  wholly  unselfish,  and  that  his 
aims  were  none  other  than  the  freeing  of  a  race.  With  his 
ardent,  masterful  temperament,  he  needed  no  counsel  from  a 
Lane  or  a  Robinson  to  make  him  ready  to  strike  a  blow,  or  to 
tell  him  that  the  time  for  it  had  come.  The  smoke  of  burningi 
Lawrence  was  more  than  sufficient.  -***  * 

If  this  interpretation  of  the  man  and  his  motives  lifts  him    \ 


jA86  JOHN  BROWN 

/  far  above  the  scale  of  that  Border  Ruffian  who  boasted  that  he 
/  would  have  the  scalp  of  an  Abolitionist  within  two  hours  and 
I  actually  killed  and  scalped  the  very  first  one  he  met,  it  can- 
|  not  be  denied  that  the  Border  Ruffians  who  sacked  Lawrence 
I]  believed  as  thoroughly  in  the  justice  of  their  cause,  and  their 
/(  right  to  establish  in  Kansas  what  was  to  them  a  sacred  institu- 
/  tion,  as  John  Brown  did  in  his.  Their  leaders  had  told  them  of 
an  agreement  in  Congress  that  Kansas  should  be  a  slave  State 
and  Nebraska  free.86  Hence  their  belief  that  the  North  had 
broken  this  compact  rendered  them  particularly  bitter  against 
the  Free  Soilers.  It  was  to  them  also  a  holy  war  in  which  they 
were  engaged,  —  even  with  its  admixture  of  whiskey  and  law 
lessness,  characteristics  of  the  Southern  "poor  white"  civiliza 
tion  of  the  period.  If  one  grants  to  John  Brown  absolution 
for  the  Pottawatomie  murders  because  he  struck  in  what  was 
to  him  a  moral  crusade,  one  must  come  near  granting  it  to 
the  Border  Ruffian  Hamilton,  who  made  eleven  men,  most  of 
whom  he  had  never  seen  before,  stand  up  in  line  on  May 
19,  1858,  that  he  might  shoot  them  down.87  In  his  behalf  it 
could  much  more  truthfully  be  said  that  there  was  war  in  Linn 
County  in  1858  than  that  there  was  war  about  Osawatomie  in 
1856.  Hamilton  doubtless  intended  also  to  send  terror  to  the 
hearts  of  his  enemies,  to  drive  them  from  the  Territory.  That 
the  five  men  he  killed  were  of  blameless  reputation,  while 
John  Brown's  five  victims  were  weak  or  bad  characters,  does 
not  alter  the  case  from  the  moral  or  the  legal  point  of  view. 
Murder  is  murder,  whatever  the  character  of  the  victims;  it 
remains,  in  its  essence,  unchanged  in  these  two  cases,  even 
though  the  leader  of  one  set  of  self-appointed  executioners 
has  been  excused  by  his  friends,  and  the  other  universally 
execrated.  Might  not  Hamilton,  too,  have  been  portrayed 
as  the  tool  of  a  vengeful  Deity?  Might  he  not,  to  use  James 
Freeman  Clarke's  characterization  of  John  Brown,  have 
maintained  that  he  believed  in  "fighting  fire  with  fire,"  that 
"there  was  no  malice  or  desire  for  vengeance  in  his  constitu 
tion"?88  Certainly,  Hamilton's  catholic  choice  of  victims  — 
he  seized  them  in  the  fields  and  on  the  roads  as  he  met  them 
—  would  prove  that  he  also  killed  without  personal  enmity. 
It  may  be  that  Hamilton  thought  that  by  so  blood-curdling 
an  assassination  he  could  stop  the  hostile  operations  of  armed 


MURDER  ON  THE  POTTAWATOMIE        187 

Free  Soil  bands  led  by  Montgomery,  Jennison  —  admittedly  a 
bad  character  —  and  others.  If  this  theory  is  wrong,  Hamil 
ton's  Marais  des  Cygnes  massacre  ought  at  least  to  have 
estopped  James  Freeman  Clarke  and  other  defenders  of  Brown 
from  saying  that  after  Brown's  victims  were  killed,  "  the  coun 
try  had  peace."  It  should  have  prevented  any  likening  of 
John  Brown  to  Grant,  Sherman  and  Sheridan,  whose  orders 
killed  thousands  in  "another  war,"  —  as  if  war  could  exist  save 
under  those  rules  of  war  which  as  peremptorily  forbid  mid 
night  assassination  as  they  do  the  violation  of  women  and  the 
poisoning  of  wells.  Finally,  a  real  war-commander  always 
assumes  the  responsibility  for  his  acts,  while  John  Brown  was 
ever  disingenuous  about  the  Pottawatomie  massacres. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  ethics,  John  Brown's  crime  on 
the  Pottawatomie  cannot  be  successfully  palliated  or  excused. 
It  must  ever  remain  a  complete  indictment  of  his  judgment 
and  wisdom ;  a  dark  blot  upon  his  memory ;  a  proof  that,  how 
ever  self-controlled,  he  had  neither  true  respect  for  the  laws 
nor  for  human  life,  nor  a  knowledge  that  two  wrongs  never 
make  a  right.  Call  him  a  Cromwellian  trooper  with  the  Old 
Testament  view  of  the  way  of  treating  one's  enemies,  as  did 
James  Freeman  Clarke,  if  you  please;  it  is  nevertheless  true 
that  Brown  lived  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  was  properly 
called  upon  to  conform  to  its  standard  of  morals  and  right 
living.  What  would  become  of  society  if  it  permitted  all 
whose  spirits  would  hark  back  to  the  modes  of  life  of  other 
times  and  other  morals  to  have  their  way?  Describing  Brown 
as  a  misplaced  Crusader  cannot,  moreover,  conceal  the  regret 
table  fact  that  the  Pottawatomie  murders  deprived  the  Free 
Soil  cause  of  an  enormous  moral  advantage.  Up  to  May,  1856, 
its  adherents  had  suffered,  bled  and  died,  without  any  blood- 
guilt  attaching  to  them.  This  gave  them,  as  unoffending  vie-/ 
tims  of  pro-slavery  fury,  an  unsurpassed  standing  in  the  courl 
of  public  opinion.  Their  hands  were  clean;  they  had  beei 
attending  to  their  own  affairs  and  were  crying  out  against] 
wrong  and  injustice  by  the  time-honored  methods  of  protest, 
—  through  the  press,  the  ballot-box,  the  right  of  assembly,  thei 
setting  up  a  government  of  their  own  to  be  passed  upon  byi 
the  highest  tribunals  of  the  land,  that  is,  the  courts  and  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States.  The  Free  State  leaders  had 


188  JOHN  BROWN 

hitherto  counselled  peaceful  submission  to  wrong  as  the  surest 
way  to  the  sympathies  of  the  nation,  and  to  that  eventual 
justice  which  no  believer  in  American  institutions  could 
despair  of,  even  in  1856,  when  the  whole  weight  of  the  Federal 
Government  and  its  troops  had  been  thrown  against  the  Free 
Soilers.  For  the  court  of  last  resort,  the  conscience  of  the 
American  people,  had  not  yet  been  heard  from  as  it  was  but  a 
few  years  later.  Of  a  sudden,  all  this  great  moral  superiority 
was  flung  away;89  the  sack  of  Lawrence,  the  Pottawatomie 
murders,  brought  about  a  complete  change  of  policy.  The 
militant  Abolitionists  of  the  John  Brown,  Horace  Greeley, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  type  reaped  their  harvest.  The  Sharp's 
rifles,  "  Beecher's  Bibles,"  now  came  into  play.  But  the  South 
at  last  had  its  tu-quoque.  ''You  sacked  Lawrence,"  said  the 
North.  "  But  you  resorted  to  the  vilest  of  midnight  assassina 
tions  of  unarmed  men  and  boys,"  replied  the  South.  Sumner 
could  not  have  delivered  unaltered  his  wonderful  philippic, 
the  "Crime  Against  Kansas,"  after  the  crimes  against  Mis- 

had  begun.  There  was  now  blood  upon  both  sides. 
For  John  Brown  no  pleas  can  be  made  that  will  enable  him 
to  escape  coming  before  the  bar  of  historical  judgment.  There 
bis  wealth  of  self-sacrifice,  and  the  nobility  of  his  aims,  do  not 
avail  to  prevent  a  complete  condemnation  of  his  bloody  crime 
at  Pottawatomie,  or  a  just  penalty  for  his  taking  human  life 
without  warrant  or  authority.  If  he  deserves  to  live  in  his 
tory,  it  is  not  because  of  his  cruel,  gruesome,  reprehensible 
acts  on  the  Pottawatomie,  but  despite  them.90 


CHAPTER  VI 
CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK 


WAR !        WAR ! 

Eight  Pro-Slavery  men  murdered  by  the  Abolitionists 
in  Franklin  County,  K.  T. 

LET  SLIP  THE  DOGS  OF  WAR! 

We  learn  from  a  despatch  just  received  by  Col.  A.  G. 
Boone,  dated  at  Paola,  K.  T.,  May  26,  1856,  and 
signed  by  Gens.  Heiskell  and  Barbee,  that  the  reported 
murder  of  eight  pro-slavery  men  in  Franklin  County, 
K.  T.,  is  but  too  true. 

It  was  thus  that  the  Westport,  Missouri,  Border  Times  gave 
to  its  readers,  on  May  27,  1856,  the  news  that  was  intended 
to  strike  terror  to  their  hearts.  The  only  reason  for  the  crime 
the  despatch  assigned  was  that  "the  abolitionists  (the  court 
being  in  session)  were  afraid  that  these  men  [their  victims] 
would  be  called  upon  to  give  evidence  against  them,  as  many 
of  them  were  charged  with  treason."  The  Border  Times  sup 
plemented  this  news  with  an  appeal  to  the  South  for  men 
and  money,  because  civil  war  with  all  its  horrors  now  reigned 
in  Kansas.  The  Jefferson,  Missouri,  Inquirer  of  the  2Qth,  and 
the  Lexington,  Missouri,  Express  of  the  26th  reprinted  the 
Western  Despatch's  account  of  the  crime  and  also  its  edito 
rial  assertion  that  "for  every  Southern  man  thus  butchered 
a  decade  [dozen?]  of  these  poltroons  should  bite  the  dust." 
Henry  Clay  Pate,  correspondent  of  the  St.  Louis  Missouri 
Republican,  wrote  on  May  30  that  no  personal  grudges  ex 
isted  between  the  murdered  and  the  murderers,  "in  fact  no 
cause  whatever  can  be  or  is  attempted  to  be  assigned  for 
their  savage  barbarity  but  that  the  deceased  were  proslav- 
ery  in  their  sentiments."  Thirteen  persons  supposed  to  be  con 
nected  with  the  crime  were  under  arrest,  and  if  ever  lynch  laws 
were  justifiable,  in  Pate's  opinion  this  was  the  time.  The  pro- 


JOHN  BROWN 

slavery  Kansas  Weekly  Herald  of  Leavenworth,  in  its  issue 
of  June  7,  reprinted  a  column  and  a  half  of  news  from  the 
Lecompton  Union,  in  the  course  of  which  that  newspaper  sar 
castically  said: 

"These  are  the  'Free  State  men*  who  have  been  so  deeply  out 
raged  by  the  law  and  order  party,  but  have,  like  martyrs,  passed 
through  the  fire,  without  the  stain  of  blood  upon  their  skirts  or  the 
mark  of  pillage  upon  their  consciences.  This  is  the  party  so  pure 
and  untarnished  with  dishonor  that  their  very  natures  revolt  at 
and  recoil  from  the  countenancing  of  even  a  minor  disgrace,  much 
less  the  foul  assassination  of  Sheriff  Jones.  This  is  the  party  that 
held  an  indignation  meeting  in  Lawrence,  headed  by  Charles  Rob 
inson  and  A.  H.  Reeder,  passed  resolutions  and  even  offered  a  re 
ward  for  the  apprehension  of  him  who  shot  Jones.  .  .  .  These  are 
the  men  who  are  cursing  the  Marshal  and  posse  for  blowing  up  this 
'Northern  Army's'  fortress  and  destroying  their  mouthpieces  and 
are  denominating  them  plunderers  and  committers  of  arson,  and 
this  news  is  taken  up  by  their  agents  in  the  North,  heralded  forth 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other  as  truth,  asking  protection  for  these 
innocent  free  state  creatures." 

Another  correspondent  of  the  Missouri  Republican,  one 
J.  Bernard,  reporting  from  Westport  the  arrival  there  of  Mrs. 
Doyle,  added  that  "a  more  cruel  murder  has  scarcely  been 
committed;"  it  was  a  "foul  and  inhuman  act."  The  fighting 
Squatter  Sovereign,  of  Atchison,  was  distinctly  sobered  by  the 
news  from  Kansas,  but  still  ready  to  fight,  for  on  June  10  it 
thus  freed  its  ever  surcharged  mind : 

"Midnight  murders,  assassinations,  burglaries,  and  arson  seem 
now  to  be  the  watchwords  of  the  so-called  Free  State  party.  Whilst 
those  rebellious  subjects  confined  themselves  to  the  resistance  of 
the  law,  in  their  attempts  to  make  arrests,  and  execute  processes  in 
their  hands,  the  pro-slavery  party  in  the  territory  was  determined 
to  stand  by  the  law,  and  aid  the  officers  in  executing  process  and 
the  courts  in  administering  justice.  And  that  we  have  no  doubt 
is  still  the  determination  of  every  pro-slavery  man,  but  there  is  a 
time  for  all  things.  Self-protection  —  defence  of  one's  life,  family 
and  property,  are  rights  guaranteed  to  all  law-abiding  citizens; 
and  the  manner  and  mode  of  keeping  off  murderers,  assassins,  &c., 
are  not  confined  to  any  very  strict  rules  of  law.  .  .  .  Hundreds  of 
the  Free  State  men,  who  have  committed  no  overt  acts,  but  have 
only  given  countenance  to  those  reckless  murderers,  assassins  and 
thieves,  will  of  necessity  share  the  same  fate  of  their  brethren.  If 
civil  war  is  to  be  the  result  in  such  a  conflict,  there  cannot  be,  and 
will  not  be,  any  neutrals  recognized." 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        191 

The  St.  Louis  Morning  Herald  on  June  13  informed  its 
readers,  on  the  authority  of  a  Lecompton  correspondent, 
that:  "The  Abolitionists  are  continuing  their  assassinations 
and  plunder.  Robinson  has  given  orders  for  a  guerrilla  war. 
Besides  the  murders  at  Ossawatomie,  by  the  noted  Brown, 
others  have  been  attempted  in  the  neighborhood."  Six  days 
later,  hearing  from  Lawrence  that  the  Pottawatomie  massacre 
was  done  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  impressing  the  Border 
Ruffians,  it  said:  "Here  is  the  avowal  of  a  man  who  ought  to 
know;  he  tells  you  that  midnight  assassination,  which  revives 
in  all  their  atrocity  the  most  fiendish  barbarities  of  the  darkest 
ages  and  which,  we  repeat,  is  without  parallel  in  Christendom 
since  the  Revolution  in  France,  is  deliberately  planned  to  strike 
terror  into  the  hearts  of  political  opponents!  Whether  such 
will  be  the  effect  of  the  lesson  remains  to  be  seen."  Editorially, 
the  Morning  Herald  had  already  expressed  the  hope  that  the 
pro-slavery  party  would  not  retaliate  in  kind  and  would  re 
frain  from  lynching  the  assassins,  while  its  rival,  the  Missouri 
Republican,  was  quick  to  see  the  advantage  which  lay  in 
declaring  that  this  bloody  outcome  of  civil  war  was  the  "legit 
imate  result  of  the  counsels  of  such  preachers  as  Beecher." 
Curiously  enough,  as  James  Ford  Rhodes  points  out,1  the 
Democratic  press  of  the  country  as  a  whole,  except  that  on 
the  border,  made  comparatively  little  use  of  the  killings.  One 
Northern  newspaper,  the  Burlington,  Iowa,  Gazette,  denounced 
them  on  June  25;  the  Liberator,  whose  editor,  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  strongly  protested  against  the  Sharp's  rifle  teachings 
of  Beecher  and  the  militant  Abolitionists,2  wholly  failed  to 
record  Brown's  crime.  Senator  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  and  Con 
gressman  Oliver  cited  the  murders  in  the  course  of  speeches 
in  the  Senate  and  House.  But  the  Republican  newspapers, 
intentionally  or  unintentionally,  deceived  their  readers  by 
garbled  reports  of  the  crime.  It  was  generally  represented 
that  five  of  a  pro-slavery  gang,  caught  hanging  a  Free  State 
settler,  were  shot  by  the  latter's  friends  as  they  came  to  his 
rescue,  and  the  Republican  press  took  extremely  good  care 
not  to  give  much  space  to  the  affair.  As  Mr.  Rhodes  explains, 
the  hitherto  excellent  character  of  the  Free  State  settlers 
rendered  it  impossible  for  the  East  to  credit  the  story,  or  for 
the  Democrats  to  bring  it  home  to  them  as  they  should  have. 


192  JOHN  BROWN 

Only  in  Missouri  did  the  Southern  press  make  of  it  all  that  was 
possible.  The  address  of  the  Law  and  Order  Party  to  their 
friends  of  the  South,  signed  by  Atchison,  B.  F.  Stringfellow, 
Major  Buford  and  others  on  June  2i,3  naturally  used  the 
massacre  to  the  utmost,  declaring,  among  other  things,  that 
Wilkinson  had  been  " flayed  alive,"  and  that  besides  the  "six 
victims,"  the  bodies  of  four  others  were  still  missing. 

Governor  Shannon  promptly  reported  the  murders  to  Presi 
dent  Pierce.  From  Lecompton,  May  31,  he  wrote:  4 

"...  Comment  is  unnecessary.  The  respectability  of  the  par 
ties  and  the  cruelties  attending  the  murders  have  produced  an 
extraordinary  state  of  excitement  in  that  portion  of  the  Territory, 
which  has  heretofore  remained  comparatively  quiet.  ...  I  hope 
the  offenders  may  be  brought  to  Justice;  if  so,  it  may  allay  to  a 
great  extent  the  excitement,  otherwise  I  fear  the  consequences." 

Governor  Shannon's  anxiety  was  justified.  On  the  27th  of 
May  the  news  of  the  Pottawatomie  crimes  was  posted  all  over 
Leaven  worth.  The  leading  Free  State  business  men  were 
arrested,  and,  according  to  an  eye-witness,  William  H.  Coffin, 
only  the  urgent  solicitation  of  such  men  as  General  Richardson 
and  other  leading  pro-slavery  officials  prevented  their  meeting 
with  violence.5  Other  influential  Free  State  men  were  ban 
ished.  Four  days  later,  the  3ist,  when  Governor  Shannon 
was  writing  his  report,  a  meeting  of  the  Law  and  Order  Party 
was  held  in  Leaven  worth  to  protest  against  the  Pottawatomie 
murders.  At  this  gathering,  so  the  Tribune  reported,6  "leading 
pro-slavery  citizens  —  some  of  them  heretofore  moderate 
men — were  the  officers  and  speechmakers.  Violent  speeches 
were  made,  and  resolutions  of  the  same  character  were  passed, 
condemning  all  Free  State  men  without  distinction,  and 
appointing  a  Vigilance  Committee  of  fifty  to  watch  their 
movements,  and  to  warn  offenders  from  the  Territory."  7 

At  Fort  Scott,  the  Southeastern  rendezvous  of  Border  Ruf 
fians,  the  news  that  Lawrence  was  burned  was  received  with 
a  general  feeling  of  joy,  but  it  was  followed  by  the  rumor  that 
at  Osawatomie  five,  and  some  said  nine,  pro-slavery  men  had 
been  called  up  in  the  night  and,  as  soon  as  they  made  their 
appearance,  had  been  shot  by  the  Abolitionists.  This  caused 
a  general  feeling  of  alarm  and  indignation,  and  the  young  men 
of  Fort  Scott,  on  their  own  responsibility,  organized  them- 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK         193 

selves  into  a  "watch  guard"  to  protect  the  Fort  from  invasion 
by  the  Abolitionists,  for,  to  add  to  the  excitement,  it  had  been 
currently  reported  that  Fort  Scott  was  to  be  burned  as  a 
retaliation  for  the  destruction  of  Lawrence.8  Some  of  the  Mis- 
sourians  at  once  took  the  offensive.  Although  Mrs.  Robinson 
was  of  the  opinion  that  "the  news  of  the  horrible  massacre 
fell  upon  the  ears  of  the  Border  Ruffians  like  a  thunderbolt 
out  of  a  clear  sky,  and  carried  fear  and  trembling  into  many 
Missouri  homes,"  and  that  "his  [Brown's]  name  became  one 
of  terror,  like  that  of  hobgoblins  to  silly  children,  or  that  of 
Lafitte  upon  the  sea,"  9  Captain  Henry  Clay  Pate,  the  fighting 
correspondent  of  the  Missouri  Republican,  went  at  once  with 
his  company  to  Paola,  eight  miles  from  Osawatomie,  to  assist 
the  United  States  Marshal  in  arresting  the  Pottawatomie 
Creek  murderers.  On  June  2,  General  J.  W.  Whitfield,  the  del 
egate  to  Congress,  wrote  from  Westport  to  the  editor  of  the 
Border  Times  that  news  had  reached  there  of  disaster  to  Cap 
tain  Pate's  company.  This  was  his  statement  of  the  situation : 

There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  this  small  force  has  been 
annihilated.  This  town,  where  the  congressional  committee  are 
now  taking  evidence,  has  been  thronged  during  the  day  with  men 
with  their  families,  fleeing  from  the  territory  to  avoid  assassination 
and  butchery.  I  am  constantly  in  receipt  of  letters  and  appeals  for 
protection.  The  cowardly  and  fiendish  manner  in  which  the  assas 
sinations  have  been  perpetrated,  particularly  those  on  Pottawato 
mie  creek  (which  I  am  informed  by  Judge  Cato  just  in  from  that 
place  have  not  been  exaggerated  in  the  public  accounts,  indeed  do 
not  equal  the  reality,)  leaves  but  little  hope  that  these  abolition 
monsters  can  be  actuated  by  any  other  consideration  than  that  of 
fear.  I  Have,  therefore,  determined  to  start  in  an  hour  or  two,  with 
as  many  men  as  can  be  raised,  in  the  hope,  if  not  too  late,  of  reliev 
ing  the  little  band,  under  Capt.  Pate,  and  afford  what  protection  I 
can  to  the  peaceful  citizens  of  the  territory,  and  restore  in  it  order 
and  peace.  .  .  . 

JNO.  W.  WHITFIELD.10 

Two  of  John  Brown's  sons  fell  readily  into  the  hands  of  the 
Missourians,  —  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Jason  Brown.  They  had 
spent  but  one  night  in  the  Adair  cabin,  —  the  one  in  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  became  insane.  Leaving  their 
wives  the  next  morning,  in  fear  lest  their  presence  attract  the 
Border  Ruffians,  they  set  off,  Jason  with  the  idea  of  surren- 


194  JOHN  BROWN 

dering  to  the  United  States  troops  and  demanding  protection. 
Jason  shortly  thereafter  encountered  a  body  of  Border  Ruf 
fians  headed  by  the  notorious  "  Rev."  Martin  White.  He  has 
thus  told  the  story  of  the  encounter:  u 

"  I  did  not  recognize  in  the  leader  the  man  who  had  led  the  squad 
of  '  steer  hunters '  to  our  camp  when  we  first  reached  the  Territory. 
But  he  was  that  same  Martin  White.  I  walked  straight  up  to  him. 
'Can  you  tell  me  the  way  to  Taway  Jones's?'  'You  are  one  of  the 
very  men  we  are  looking  for!  Your  name  is  Brown.  I  knew  your 
father.  I  knew  your  brother  1'  shouted  White.  Up  came  all  the 
guns  clicking.  'Down  with  him!'  the  squad  yelled.  'You  are  our 
prisoner,'  said  White.  'Got  any  arms?'  'A  revolver.'  'Hand  it 
out.'  'Now  go  ahead  of  the  horses.'  I  was  weak  with  ague,  excite 
ment,  fatigue.  But  I  was  terribly  afraid  of  torture.  I  knew  what 
these  men  had  done  to  others,  and  all  my  habitual  stammering  left 
me.  'My  name  is  Jason  Brown,'  I  said,  standing  facing  them.  'I 
am  a  Free  State  man,  and  what  you  call  an  Abolitionist.  I  have 
never  knowingly  injured  a  human  being.  Now  if  you  want  my  blood 
for  that,  there  is  a  mark  for  you.'  And  I  pulled  open  the  bosom  of 
my  shirt.  I  expected  to  be  shot  to  pieces.  And  they  took  that  for 
courage !  Three-fourths  of  them  laid  their  guns  across  their  saddles 
and  began  to  talk  friendly.  Martin  White  said:  'We  won't  kill  you 
now.  But  you  are  our  prisoner  and  we  hold  every  man  a  scoundrel 
till  he  is  proven  honest.'  One  man,  a  villainous  face,  kept  his  gun 
up.  I  dared  not  turn  my  back,  until  I  had  backed  thirty  rods  or  so. 
I  wanted  to  be  killed  quickly,  not  to  be  tortured.  They  drove  me 
four  miles  at  a  fast  walk.  Then  we  came  to  a  cabin  and  store.  I  was 
having  chills  every  day,  then,  and  at  that  moment  my  chill  came 
on.  They  gave  me  a  sack  of  coffee  for  a  pillow.  The  man  who  had 
kept  his  gun  levelled  came  and  looked  at  me,  with  his  bowie  knife 
raised.  ' Do  you  see  anything  bad  about  me?'  I  asked.  '  I  don't  see 
anything  good  about  ye!'  he  snarled,  but  went  away.  As  the  fever 
came  on  they  put  me  on  a  horse,  tied  my  feet  beneath  him  and  my 
arms  behind  me  and  took  me,  with  a  guard  of  twenty  men,  to  Paola, 
where  were  about  three  hundred  armed  pro-slavery  men.  One  flour 
ished  a  coil  of  new  hemp  rope  over  his  head  as  we  rode  up.  '  Swing 
him  up!  Swing  him  up!'  he  shouted.  They  hustled  me  over  to  a 
tree  and  that  man  flung  his  rope  end  over  a  limb  and  stood  ready. 
I  sat  down  on  the  grass  by  the  tree.  I  did  n't  suppose  I  had  a  friend 
in  that  crowd.  Then  came  what  changed  my  whole  mind  and  life 
as  to  my  feeling  toward  slave-holders.  I  can't  see  a  Southerner  or 
a  Southern  soldier,  now,  whatever  he  thinks  of  me,  without  wanting 
to  grasp  his  two  hands. 

"As  I  sat  there  waiting  under  the  dangling  rope,  I  saw  three  men 
aside  from  the  yelling  crowd,  differently  dressed  from  the  rest.  One 
of  them  came  quietly,  tapped  me  on  the  shoulder  and  showed  me  a 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK         195 

scrap  of  paper  in  the  palm  of  his  hand.  '  Whose  writing  is  that? '  asked 
he.  'My  father's.'  'Is  old  John  Brown  your  father?'  'Yes.'  Never 
another  word  did  he  say,  but  went  around  and  spoke  to  the  crowd, 
who  made  so  much  noise  that  I  could  not  hear  what  he  said.  Then 
he  came  back,  (he  was  Judge  Jacobs,  of  Lexington,  Kentucky,  and 
one  of  his  companions  was  Judge  Cato,)  and  quietly  said  to  me: 
'  Come  with  me  to  my  house  and  I  will  treat  you  like  my  own  son, 
but  we  must  hold  you  prisoner.'  Mrs.  Doyle  was  also  staying  in  that 
house  and  we  all  sat  at  the  same  table  for  meals.  She  said  nothing. 
There  I  was,  one  lone  coward,  and  about  forty  proslavery  men  in 
the  house  that  night.  .  .  .  On  the  third  night  John  was  brought  in. 
We  lay  together  and  I  slept  soundly  on  the  front  side  of  the  bed. 
In  the  night  there  was  a  sudden  commotion  and  a  crowd  of  men 
rushed  in.  One  brandished  a  bowie  knife  over  me  as  if  to  drive  it 
into  my  right  side.  I  slept  on.  John  bared  my  heart,  and,  pointing 
to  it,  said,  'Strike  there.'  They  took  me  away,  two  men  holding  my 
tied  arms,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  leaving  John,  up  to  the  Shaw- 
nee  Mission.  But  they  were  afraid  to  keep  me  there  and  the  same 
night  brought  me  back  again.  .  .  ." 

Jason  did  not  see  John  again  for  about  two  weeks.  Then  the 
latter  was  becoming  sane.  But  presently  a  squad  arrived  to 
escort  Jason  and  John  to  Osawatomie. 

"Capt.  Wood  himself  came  into  the  room  where  we  two  were 
sleeping,  seized  John  by  the  collar  with,  —  'Come  out  here,  sir,' 
and  jerked  him  out  of  bed.  Wood  himself  bound  John's  wrists  be 
hind  him,  and  then  his  upper  arms,  using  small,  hard  hemp  rope, 
and  he  set  his  teeth  and  pulled  with  all  his  force,  tightening  the 
turns.  Later  another  rope  some  forty  feet  long  was  passed  between 
these  two,  to  drive  him  by.  Outside  the  leader  of  the  squad  which 
was  to  take  us  to  Osawatomie  (I  think  this  was  Pate)  was  calling 
orders  to  his  men.  'Oyez,  Oyez,  Oyez,'  he  shouted.  'Form  a  line 
of  battle.' 

"They  drove  John  afoot  all  the  way  from  Paola  to  Osawatomie. 
Me,  on  the  other  hand,  they  carried  in  a  wagon.  When  I  saw  John 
in  the  new  camp,  (they  had  to  change  camp  as  the  horses  grazed 
the  grass  off,)  John  was  a  maniac  and  in  a  terrible  condition.  They 
had  never  loosened  the  cords  around  his  upper  arms  and  the  flesh 
was  swollen  so  that  the  cords  were  covered.  They  had  driven  him 
through  the  water  of  Bull  Creek  and  the  yellow  flints  at  the  bottom 
had  cut  through  his  boots  and  terribly  lacerated  his  feet.  I  found 
him  chained  by  each  ankle,  with  an  ox-cart  chain,  to  the  center 
pole  of  the  guard  tent.  John,  who  then  fancied  himself  commander 
of  the  camp,  was  shrieking  military  orders,  jumping  up  and  down 
and  casting  himself  about.  Capt.  Wood  said  to  me:  'Keep  that 
man  still.'  '  I  can't  keep  an  insane  man  still,'  said  I.  '  He  is  no  more 
insane  than  you  are.  If  you  don't  keep  him  still,  we'll  do  it  for  you.' 


196  JOHN  BROWN 

I  tried  my  best,  but  John  had  not  a  glimmer  of  reason  and  could  not 
understand  anything.  He  went  on  yelling.  Three  troopers  came 
in.  One  struck  him  a  terrible  blow  on  the  jaw  with  his  fist,  throw 
ing  him  on  his  side.  A  second  knelt  on  him  and  pounded  him  with 
his  fist.  The  third  stood  off  and  kicked  him  with  all  his  force  in 
the  back  of  the  neck.  'Don't  kill  a  crazy  man!'  cried  I.  'No  more 
crazy  than  you  are,  but  we '11  fetch  it  out  of  him.'  After  that  John 
lay  unconscious  for  three  or  four  hours.  We  camped  about  one 
and  a  half  miles  southeast  of  the  Adairs.  There  we  stayed  about 
two  weeks.  Then  we  were  ordered  to  move  again.  They  drove  us 
on  foot,  chained  two  and  two.  I  was  chained  to  George  Partridge. 
In  a  gang  they  drove  us  up  right  up  in  front  of  Adair's  house.  Aunt 
Florilla  came  out  and  talked  to  Lieut.  Iverson,  (he  was  a  cruel  man!) 
'What  does  this  mean  in  this  Land  of  the  Free?  What  does  this 
mean  that  you  drive  these  men  like  cattle  and  slaves ! '  and  she  went 
on,  giving  him  a  terrible  cutting.  Iverson  made  no  reply.  Aunt  gave 
us  all  some  little  food.  At  Ottawa  ford  young  Kilbourne  dropped 
in  a  sun-stroke.  .  .  .  We  camped  near  'Taway  Jones's.  All  the 
time  these  troops  were  looking  for  Old  Brown.  And  father  would 
show  himself  from  time  to  time,  at  daylight,  at  different  places,  at 
a  distance  from  his  real  camp.  Then  word  would  come  to  Wood  that 
Old  Brown  and  his  men  had  been  seen  at  such  a  time,  here  or  there 
on  Marais  des  Cygnes.  Wood  would  order  out  his  men  to  look  for 
him,  forty  miles  off,  the  men  would  spend  themselves  hunting  along 
the  river-bottoms,  through  dense,  prickly  tangles,  and  come  back 
at  night  worn  out  and  furious,  their  horses  done.  I  heard  one  say, 
one  night,  out  of  his  officer's  hearing:  'D — d  if  I  'm  going  after  Old 
Brown  any  more.  If  I  'm  ordered  out  any  more,  I  '11  go  into  the 
bushes  and  hide.'  This  kept  up  three  or  four  days,  and  all  the  time 
John  Brown  was  camped  so  close  that  he  heard  the  bugle  calls,  and 
got  his  water  at  the  same  spring  where  they  got  theirs.  He  was 
hoping  for  a  chance  to  effect  a  rescue.  One  day  word  came  to  Wood 
that  John  Brown  was  near  and  would  attempt  a  rescue.  Thereupon 
he  repeated  the  message  to  me,  commenting:  'If  such  a  rescue  be 
attempted  and  you  try  to  escape,  you  will  be  the  first  ones  that  we 
will  shoot."1 

A  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Times  thus  described  the 
torture  of  the  prisoners:  12 

"  A  scene  then  followed  which  has  no  parallel  in  a  republican  gov 
ernment.  They  were  chained  two  and  two  by  taking  a  common  trace- 
chain  and  using  a  padlock  at  each  end,  which  was  so  fixed  as  to  make 
a  close  clasp  around  the  ankle.  Like  a  gang  of  slaves  they  were 
thus  driven  on  foot  the  whole  distance  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five 
miles  per  day,  dragging  their  chains  after  them.  They  were  unac 
customed  to  travelling  —  their  chains  had  worn  upon  their  ankles 
until  one  of  them  became  quite  exhausted  and  was  put  in  a  wagon. 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        197 

What  a  humiliating,  disgusting  sight  in  a  free  government  —  to 
see  a  chained  gang  of  men  who  had  committed  no  crime  whatever, 
driven  sixty-five  miles  by  their  merciless  prosecutors  to  attend  a 
trial,  then  have  granted  them  an  unconditional  release  and  no  pro 
vision  for  redress!" 

This  shocking  ill-treatment  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  which  is 
confirmed  by  much  contemporary  testimony,  aroused  indig 
nation  in  the  North,  and  to  its  effect  upon  John  Brown  was 
attributed,  though  erroneously,  much  of  the  father's  bitter 
ness  toward  the  slaveholders.    According  to  a  special  corre 
spondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  First  Lieutenant  James 
Mclntosh,  First  Cavalry,  stated  to  him  in  June  that  the  reason 
for  the  arrest  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Jason  Brown,  and  the 
severity  of  their  treatment,  was  the  soldiers'  belief  that  they 
were  two  of  the  Pottawatomie  murderers.13    As  for  Captain 
Thomas  J.  Wood,  it  was  pointed  out  at  the  time  that  he  was 
a  native  of  Kentucky,  and  it  was,  therefore,  taken  for  granted 
that  his  sympathies  were  with  the  South,  and  his  cruelties 
due  to  friendliness  for  the  Border  Ruffians.    It  is  an  interest 
ing  fact  that  this  officer  later  became,  like  Major  Sedgwick,  a 
distinguished  Northern  general,  one  of  the  very  best  division 
commanders  in  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland,  in  which  he  was 
conspicuous  for  his  wounds,  his  ability  and  his  gallantry. 
After  spending  two  weeks  on  Ottawa  Creek  with  his  prisoners, 
Captain  Wood  marched  them  to  Lecompton  via  Palmyra  and 
Lawrence.    Here,  after  an  examination,  Jason  was  released, 
but  John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  held  on  the  charge  of  high  treason 
because  of  his  political  activity,  and  was  not  released  until 
September  10.  Jason  returned  to  his  own  claim  only  to  find 
his  house  burned  by  the  Border  Ruffians  and  his  cattle  driven 
off,  though  his  oxen  later  returned  to  him,  of  themselves,  from 
Missouri.    He  built  himself  a  shelter  of  fence  rails,  but  soon 
joined  his  father's  company  as  the  only  place  where  he  could 
find  safety.    His  wife  and  the  other  women  went  into  the 
Osawatomie  block-house  for  security,  for  by  this  time  almost 
all  the  Free  State  men  were  out  under  arms.14 

John  Brown  and  those  who  had  participated  with  him  in 

the  Pottawatomie  murders  arrived  at  Jason  Brown's  claim 

and  went  into  hiding  on  May  26,  sending  his  son  Owen  to 

4 Osawatomie  a  day  or  two  later  for  provisions.    Meeting  his 


I98  JOHN  BROWN 

brother,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  wandering  in  the  brush,  Owen 
endeavored  to  persuade  him  to  join  his  father,  but  he  admit 
ted  frankly  that  they  were  now  hunted  outlaws,  likely  to  be 
separated  for  months  from  all  of  their  families.  John  then 
declined,  only  to  meet  the  worse  fate  already  recorded.15  On 
Owen's  return  there  came  to  the  camp  O.  A.  Carpenter,  a  Free 
Soiler  from  the  neighborhood  of  Prairie  City,  who  offered  to 
pilot  Brown  to  the  headwaters  of  Ottawa  Creek,  as  there  were 
two  companies,  one  of  cavalry  and  one  of  Missourians,  then 
in  search  of  the  murderers.  The  Brown  party  broke  camp  at 
once  and  started  at  nightfall  in  the  direction  of  Lawrence;  it 
comprised  then,  besides  the  leader,  John  Brown,  his  sons  Fred 
erick,  Salmon,  Owen  and  Oliver,  Henry  Thompson,  Weiner, 
Townsley,  August  Bondi  and  the  guide,  Carpenter,  "Dutch 
Henry's  "  horses  furnishing  some  of  the  mounts.  In  the  course 
of  the  first  few  hours  of  the  march,  they  rode  straight  into  the 
bivouac  of  a  detachment  of  United  States  troops  presuma 
bly  in  pursuit  of  them.  It  was  near  the  crossing  of  the  Marais 
des  Cygnes  River,  according  to  Owen  Brown,  and  the  troops 
ordered  them  to  halt.  "It  was  dark,"  he  narrates,  "and  fa 
ther  called  for  the  captain.  In  the  meantime  we  placed  our 
horses  one  beyond  the  other  and  close  together  so  as  to  look 
like  a  small  company.  After  some  time  the  captain  came  out 
in  front  of  his  tent  and  asked:  'Who  are  you?'  I  think  father 
replied,  'There  are  a  few  of  us  going  towards  Lawrence.'  The 
captain  answered:  'All  right,  pass  on."  This  these  modern 
successors  of  Robin  Hood  lost  no  time  in  doing,  and  in  biv 
ouacking  for  the  night  some  distance  away,  but  not  far  from 
the  farm  of  Howard  Carpenter,  a  brother  of  their  guide. 

The  next  day  they  entered  some  virgin  woods  on  Ottawa 
Creek  and  camped  near  a  fine  spring.  Bondi,  an  able  Aus 
trian  Jew,  who  had  put  himself  under  Brown's  leadership  after 
hearing  of  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  has  left  the  following 
picture  of  their  al  fresco  life  in  the  forest  primeval : 16 

"We  stayed  here  up  to  the  morning  of  Sunday,  the  1st  of  June, 
and  during  these  few  days  I  fully  succeeded  in  understanding  the 
exalted  character  of  my  old  friend  [John  Brown].  He  exhibited  at 
all  times  the  most  affectionate  care  for  each  of  us.  He  also  attended 
to  cooking.  We  had  two  meals  daily,  consisting  of  bread,  baked  in 
skillets;  this  was  washed  down  with  creek  water,  mixed  with  a  little 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK         199 

ginger  and  a  spoon  of  molasses  to  each  pint.  Nevertheless  we  kept 
in  excellent  spirits;  we  considered  ourselves  as  one  family,  allied  to 
one  another  by  the  consciousness  that  it  was  our  duty  to  undergo 
all  these  privations  to  further  the  good  cause;  had  determined  to 
share  any  danger  with  one  another,  that  victory  or  death  might 
find  us  together.  We  were  united  as  a  band  of  brothers  by  the  love 
and  affection  towards  the  man  who  with  tender  words  and  wise 
counsel,  in  the  depth  of  the  wilderness  of  Ottawa  creek,  prepared 
a  handful  of  young  men  for  the  work  of  laying  the  foundation  of  a 
free  commonwealth.  His  words  have  ever  remained  firmly  engraved 
on  my  mind.  Many  and  various  were  the  instructions  he  gave  dur 
ing  the  days  of  our  compulsory  leisure  in  this  camp.  He  expressed 
himself  to  us  that  we  should  never  allow  ourselves  to  be  tempted 
by  any  consideration  to  acknowledge  laws  and  institutions  to  exist 
as  of  right  if  our  conscience  and  reason  condemned  them. 

"He  admonished  us  not  to  care  whether  a  majority,  no  matter 
how  large,  opposed  our  principles  and  opinions.  The  largest  ma 
jorities  were  sometimes  only  organized  mobs,  whose  howlings  never 
changed  black  into  white,  or  night  into  day.  A  minority  conscious 
of  its  rights,  based  on  moral  principles,  would,  under  a  republican 
government,  sooner  or  later  become  the  majority." 

On  May  30  James  Redpath,  the  correspondent  of  the  St. 
Louis  Democrat  and  the  Tribune,  rode  by  accident  into  this 
gathering.  His  description,  too,  is  worth  reprinting,  since  the 
scene  he  portrays  beyond  doubt  represents  many  similar  ones 
in  John  Brown's  life:17 

"I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  scene  that  here  opened  to  my  view. 
Near  the  edge  of  the  creek  a  dozen  horses  were  tied,  all  ready  sad 
dled  for  a  ride  for  life,  or  a  hunt  after  Southern  invaders.  A  dozen 
rifles  and  sabres  were  stacked  around  the  trees.  In  an  open  space, 
amid  the  shady  and  lofty  woods,  there  was  a  great  blazing  fire  with 
a  pot  on  it;  a  woman,  bareheaded,  with  an  honest,  sun-burnt  face, 
was  picking  blackberries  from  the  bushes;  three  or  four  armed  men 
were  lying  on  red  and  blue  blankets  on  the  grass;  and  two  fine- 
looking  youths  were  standing,  leaning  on  their  arms,  on  guard  near 
by.  One  of  them  was  the  youngest  son  of  Old  Brown,  and  the  other 
was  'Charley,'  the  brave  Hungarian,  who  was  subsequently  mur 
dered  at  Ossawatomie.  Old  Brown  himself  stood  near  the  fire,  with 
his  shirt-sleeves  rolled  up,  and  a  large  piece  of  pork  in  his  hand. 
He  was  cooking  a  pig.  He  was  poorly  clad,  and  his  toes  protruded 
from  his  boots.  The  old  man  received  me  with  great  cordiality, 
and  the  little  band  gathered  about  me.  But  it  was  for  a  moment 
only;  for  the  Captain  ordered  them  to  renew  their  work.  He  re 
spectfully  but  firmly  forbade  conversation  on  the  Pottawatomie 
affair;  and  said  that,  if  I  desired  any  information  from  the  com- 


200  JOHN  BROWN 

pany  in  relation  to  their  conduct  or  intentions,  he,  as  their  Captain, 
would  answer  for  them  whatever  it  was  proper  to  communicate. 

"In  this  camp  no  manner  of  profane  language  was  permitted; 
no  man  of  immoral  character  was  allowed  to  stay,  excepting  as  a 
prisoner  of  war.  He  made  prayers  in  which  all  the  company  united, 
every  morning  and  evening;  and  no  food  was  ever  tasted  by  his 
men  until  the  Divine  blessing  had  been  asked  on  it.  After  every 
meal,  thanks  were  returned  to  the  Bountiful  Giver.  Often,  I  was 
told,  the  old  man  would  retire  to  the  densest  solitudes,  to  wrestle 
with  his  God  in  secret  prayer.  One  of  his  company  subsequently 
informed  me  that,  after  these  retirings,  he  would  say  that  the  Lord 
had  directed  him  in  visions  what  to  do;  that,  for  himself,  he  did  not 
love  warfare,  but  peace,  —  only  acting  in  obedience  to  the  will  of 
the  Lord,  and  fighting  God's  battles  for  His  children's  sake. 

"It  was  at  this  time  that  the  old  man  said  to  me :  '  I  would  rather 
have  the  small-pox,  yellow  fever,  and  cholera  all  together  in  my 
camp,  than  a  man  without  principles.  It's  a  mistake,  sir,'  he  con 
tinued,  'that  our  people  make,  when  they  think  that  bullies  are  the 
best  fighters,  or  that  they  are  the  men  fit  to  oppose  these  Southern 
ers.  Give  me  men  of  good  principles;  God-fearing  men;  men  who 
respect  themselves;  and,  with  a  dozen  of  them,  I  will  oppose  any 
hundred  such  men  as  these  Buford  ruffians!" 

Besides  Charles  Kaiser,  subsequently  murdered  in  cold 
blood  by  the  Border  Ruffians,  as  Redpath  records,  Benjamin 
Cochrane,  a  settler  on  the  Pottawatomie,  had  joined  Brown's 
band,  the  latter  bringing  the  news  that  Bondi's  cabin  had 
been  burned,  his  cattle  stolen  and  Weiner's  store  plundered, 
in  plain  view,  he  alleged,  of  United  States  troops.  Captain 
Samuel  T.  Shore,  of  the  Prairie  City  Rifles,  and  a  Dr.  Westfall 
also  visited  the  camp,  bringing  news  of  Border  Ruffian  out 
rages  and  asking  for  aid.18  Captain  Shore  brought  provisions, 
and  on  May  31  reported  that  a  large  force  of  Missourians  had 
gone  into  camp  near  Black  Jack,  a  spring  on  the  Santa  Fe 
trail,  named  for  a  group  of  "black  jack"  oaks.  It  was  agreed 
that  Brown's  party  and  as  many  men  as  Shore  could  get  to 
gether  should  meet  at  Prairie  City  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  fore 
noon  of  the  next  day.  This  took  place,  Brown's  men  attend 
ing  a  service  held  by  an  itinerant  preacher,  with  part  of  the 
congregation  in  a  building,  part  outside.  The  services  were 
interrupted  by  the  passing  of  three  strangers  in  the  direction 
of  Black  Jack.  Two  of  them  were  captured,  and,  when  ques 
tioned  by  John  Brown,  admitted  that  they  were  from  the 
vcamp  of  Henry  Clay  Pate,  the  correspondent  of  the  St.  Louis 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        201 

Missouri  Republican,  a  captain  in  the  Missouri  militia  and 
a  deputy  United  States  Marshal,  who,  as  already  related,  on 
the  news  of  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  had  marched  at  once 
to  Paola  and,  after  assisting  in  the  round-up  there  of  Free 
State  men,  including  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Jason  Brown,  had 
pushed  on  into  the  Territory  in  search  of  the  other  Browns. 

At  that  time  twenty-four  years  of  age,  a  native  of  Kanawha 
County,  Virginia,  and  a  former  student  of  the  University  of 
Virginia,  Pate  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  fine  soldier,  for  he 
died,  well  spoken  of,  as  Colonel  of  the  Fifth  Virginia  Cavalry, 
in  command  of  a  brigade  of  cavalry,  on  the  same  day  and,  it  is 
said,  within  a  hundred  yards  of  where  the  brilliant  Confed 
erate  General,  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  was  mortally  wounded.  This 
was  near  Yellow  Tavern,  Virginia,  May  II,  i864.19  Pate's, 
John  Brown's  and  Stuart's  careers  were  thus  strangely  inter 
woven  ;  Pate  and  Brown  first  met  each  other  in  battle  at  Black 
Jack,  and  encountered  Lieutenant  J.  E.  B.  Stuart  three  days 
later,  when  Pate's  men  were  set  free.  Stuart  and  Brown  met 
again  in  the  Harper's  Ferry  raid,  and  Pate  visited  his  old 
captor  in  jail  shortly  thereafter.  They  could  not  have  fore 
seen  that  there  would  be  three  acts  in  all  to  their  public  ap 
pearance;  or  that  all  were  to  perish  violently  within  eight 
years,  two  of  them  after  having  won  for  themselves  imper 
ishable  renown,  the  one  by  reason  of  his  death  on  the  scaffold, 
the  other  because  of  military  achievements  which  have  placed 
him  in  the  front  rank  of  American  cavalry  leaders.  There 
could  be  no  clearer  illustration  than  the  meeting  of  these 
men  of  the  direct  relation  of  "Bleeding  Kansas"  to  Harper's 
Ferry  and  to  the  national  convulsion  of  1861  to  1865.  Kansas 
was  but  the  prelude;  what  more  natural  than  that  some  of 
the  actors  who  appeared  in  the  prologue  should  hold  the  cen 
tre  of  the  stage  in  the  later  acts  of  the  greatest  drama  of  the 
nineteenth  century? 

Members  of  the  startled  Prairie  City  congregation  were 
eager  to  leave  at  once  in  search  of  Pate,  particularly  because 
the  sons  of  a  preacher  named  Moore,  who  had  been  captured 
near  Westport  the  day  before  and  taken  off,  learned  now  that 
their  father  was  in  Pate's  camp.  Brown  counselled,  more 
wisely,  that  the  night  be  awaited  and  the  enemy  assailed  at 
sunrise.  About  forty  men  volunteered  to  go  as  the  Prairie 


202  JOHN  BROWN 

City  Rifles,  but  their  numbers  dwindled  rapidly  as  the  distance 
to  the  enemy  decreased.  At  daylight  on  June  2  Brown's  men 
were  fed,  and  at  sunrise  they  were  dismounted  at  the  Black 
Jack  oaks,  Frederick  Brown  being  left  in  charge  of  the 
horses.20  A  half  mile  distant  was  Pate's  camp,  the  covered 
wagons  in  front,  then  the  tents,  and  then,  on  higher  ground 
to  the  rear,  the  picketed  horses  and  mules.  A  Missouri 
sentinel  fired  the  first  shot.  As  to  what  happened  thereafter, 
there  is  a  mass  of  testimony.  Henry  Clay  Pate,  in  a  rare 
pamphlet  published  in  New  York  in  1 859,2 *  nas  given  his  side 
of  the  story.  John  Brown  described  the  whole  " battle"  in  a 
letter  to  his  family  dated  "near  Brown's  Station,  June,  1856." 
Both  Pate  and  Brown  discussed  the  fight  at  length  in  the 
Tribune  of  June  13  and  July  II  respectively,  and  Brown's 
Tribune  letter,  hitherto  entirely  overlooked  by  his  various 
biographers,  must  be  taken  as  the  final  word  in  settling  sev 
eral  long-disputed  points.  Besides  the  principal  actors,  Lieu 
tenant  Brockett,  Bondi,  Owen  Brown,  Henry  Thompson, 
Salmon  Brown  and  the  preacher  Moore,  who  was  Pate's 
prisoner,  have  recorded  their  recollections  of  the  conflict. 

In  his  letter  to  his  family  John  Brown  thus  outlines  the 
skirmish : 

"  As  I  was  much  older  than  Captain  Shore,  the  principal  direction 
of  the  fight  devolved  on  me.  We  got  to  within  about  a  mile  of  their 
camp  before  being  discovered  by  their  scouts,  and  then  moved  at 
a  brisk  pace,  Captain  Shore  and  men  forming  our  left,  and  my  com 
pany  the  right.  When  within  about  sixty  rods  of  the  enemy,  Cap 
tain  Shore's  men  halted  by  mistake  in  a  very  exposed  situation, 
and  continued  the  fire,  both  his  men  and  the  enemy  being  armed 
with  Sharpe's  rifles.  My  company  had  no  long-shooters.  We  (my 
company)  did  not  fire  a  gun  until  we  gained  the  rear  of  a  bank, 
about  fifteen  or  twenty  rods  to  the  right  of  the  enemy,  where  we 
commenced,  and  soon  compelled  them  to  hide  in  a  ravine.  Cap 
tain  Shore,  after  getting  one  man  wounded,  and  exhausting  his 
ammunition,  came  with  part  of  his  men  to  the  right  of  my  posi 
tion,  much  discouraged.  The  balance  of  his  men,  including  the 
one  wounded,  had  left  the  ground.  Five  of  Captain  Shore's  men 
came  boldly  down  and  joined  my  company,  and  all  but  one  man, 
wounded,  helped  to  maintain  the  fight  until  it  was  over.  I  was 
obliged  to  give  my  consent  that  he  should  go  after  more  help,  when 
all  his  men  left  but  eight,  four  of  whom  I  persuaded  to  remain  in 
a  secure  position,  and  there  busied  one  of  them  in  shooting  the 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        203 

horses  and  mules  of  the  enemy,  which  served  for  a  show  of  fight. 
After  the  firing  had  continued  for  some  two  or  three  hours,  Cap 
tain  Pate  with  twenty-three  men,  two  badly  wounded,  laid  down 
their  arms  to  nine  men,  myself  included,  —  four  of  Captain  Shore's 
men  and  four  of  my  own.  One  of  my  men  (Henry  Thompson)  was 
badly  wounded,  and  after  continuing  his  fire  for  an  hour  longer  was 
obliged  to  quit  the  ground.  Three  others  of  my  company  (but  not 
of  my  family)  had  gone  off.  Salmon  was  dreadfully  wounded  by 
accident,  soon  after  the  fight;  but  both  he  and  Henry  are  fast  recov 
ering."22 

Captain  Pate  always  alleged  that  he  had  been  taken  pris 
oner  by  John  Brown  by  trickery  and  treachery,  when  under 
a  flag  of  truce,  "a  barbarity  unlocked  for  in  this  country, 
and  unheard  of  in  the  annals  of  honorable  warfare."  But 
Pate  admits  on  the  same  page  that  his  object  in  using  the 
flag  of  truce  was  "  to  gain  time,  and  if  possible  have  hostilities 
suspended  for  a  while." 

"With  this  view,"  he  says,  "a  flag  of  truce  was  sent  out  and  an 
interview  with  the  captain  requested.  Captain  Brown  advanced  and 
sent  for  me.  I  approached  him  and  made  known  the  fact  that  I 
was  acting  under  the  orders  of  the  U.  S.  Marshal  and  was  only  in 
search  of  persons  for  whom  writs  of  arrest  had  been  issued,  and 
that  I  wished  to  make  a  proposition.  He  replied  that  he  would  hear 
no  proposals,  and  that  he  wanted  an  unconditional  surrender.  I 
asked  for  fifteen  minutes  to  answer.  He  refused.  .  .  .  Had  I  known 
whom  I  was  fighting  I  would  not  have  trusted  to  a  flag  of  truce. 
The  enemy's  men  were  then  marched  up  to  within  fifty  paces  of 
mine  and  I  placed  before  them.  Captain  Brown  commanded  me  to 
order  my  company  to  lay  down  their  arms.  Putting  a  revolver  to 
my  breast  he  repeated  the  command,  giving  me  one  or  two  minutes 
to  make  the  order.  He  might  have  shot  me;  his  men  might  have 
riddled  me,  but  I  would  not  have  given  the  order  for  a  world,  much 
less  my  poor  life."23 

His  company,  he  explains,  saved  his  life  by  voluntarily 
laying  down  their  arms.  There  is  more  braggadocio,  and 
also  the  admission  that  "there  is  another  consolation  for  me, 
if  I  showed  the  white  feather  at  Black  Jack,  namely:  they 
who  fight  and  run  away  shall  live  to  fight  another  day,"  — • 
which  was  surely  a  correct  prophecy.  But  he  admits  that  at 
Black  Jack  he  resorted  to  the  flag  of  truce  because  he  saw  — • 
what  no  one  else  did  —  that  "reinforcements  for  the  Aboli- 


,204  JOHN  BROWN 

tionists  were  near  and  that  the  fight  would  be  desperate,  and 
if  they  persisted  not  one  would  be  left  to  tell  the  tale  of  car 
nage  that  must  follow." 

To  Pate's  allegations  John  Brown  replied  thus  in  the  Trib 
une  of  July  II,  1856: 

LAWRENCE,  K.  T.,  Tuesday,  July  i,  1856. 

I  have  just  read  in  the  Tribune  of  June  13,  an  article  from  the  pen 
of  Capt.  H.  C.  Pate,  headed  "The  Battle  of  Black  Jack  Point," 
(in  other  words  the  battle  of  Palmyra),  and  take  the  liberty  of  cor 
recting  a  very  few  of  Capt.  Pate's  statements  in  reference  to  that 
affair,  having  had  personal  cognizance  of  what  then  occurred.  The 
first  statement  I  would  notice  is  in  these  words:  "At  first  the  enemy 
squatted  down  in  open  prairie  and  fired  at  a  distance  from  300  to 
400  yards  from  us.  Their  lines  were  soon  broken  and  they  hastily 
ran  to  a  ravine  for  shelter."  This  is  wrong,  as  my  company  formed 
a  distinct  line  from  Capt.  Shore  and  his  men,  and  without  stopping 
to  fire  a  gun  passed  at  once  into  a  ravine  on  the  enemy's  right, 
where  we  commenced  our  fire  on  them,  and  where  we  remained  till 
the  enemy  hoisted  the  white  flag.  I  expected  Capt.  Shore  to  form 
his  men  and  occupy  a  similar  position  on  the  left  of  the  enemy,  but 
was  disappointed,  he  halting  on  the  eastern  slope  above  the  ravine, 
in  front  of  the  enemy's  camp.  This  I  consider  as  the  principal  mis 
take  in  our  part  of  the  action,  as  Capt.  Shore  was  unable  to  retain 
this  unfortunate  position:  and  when  he,  with  part  of  his  men  left 
it  and  joined  my  company,  the  balance  of  his  company  quit  the  field 
entirely.  One  of  them  was  wounded  and  disabled.  Capt.  Shore 
and  all  his  men,  I  believe,  had  for  a  considerable  time  kept  that 
position,  and  received  the  fire  of  the  enemy  like  the  best  regular 
troops  (to  their  praise  I  would  say  it)  and  until  they  had  to  a  con 
siderable  extent  exhausted  their  ammunition.  Capt.  Pate  says: 
"When  the  fight  commenced  our  forces  were  nearly  equal."  I  here 
say  most  distinctly,  that  twenty-six  officers  and  men  all  told,  was 
the  entire  force  on  the  Free  State  side  who  were  on  the  ground  at 
all  during  the  fight  or  in  any  way  whatever  participated  in  it.  Of 
these  Capt.  Shore  and  his  company  numbered  sixteen  all  told.  My 
company,  ten  only,  including  myself.  Six  of  these  were  of  my  own 
family.  He  says  further,  "but  I  saw  reinforcements  for  the  Aboli 
tionists  were  near,"  &c.  Capt.  Pate,  it  seems,  could  see  much  better 
than  we;  for  we  neither  saw  nor  received  any  possible  reenforce- 
ments  until  some  minutes  after  the  surrender,  nor  did  we  under 
stand  that  any  help  was  near  us,  and  at  the  time  of  the  surrender 
our  entire  force,  officers  and  men,  all  told,  had  dwindled  down  to 
but  fifteen  men,  who  were  either  on  or  about  the  field.  Capt.  Shore 
and  his  men  had  all  left  the  field  but  eight.  One  of  his  men  who  had 
left  was  wounded  and  was  obliged  to  leave.  Of  the  eight  who  re 
mained  four,  whose  names  I  love  to  repeat,  stood  nobly  by  four  of 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        205 

my  men  until  the  fight  was  over.  The  other  four  had,  with  two  of 
my  company,  become  disheartened  and  gone  to  a  point  out  of  reach 
of  the  enemy's  fire,  where,  by  the  utmost  exertion,  I  had  kept  them 
to  make  a  little  show,  and  busied  one  of  them  in  shooting  mules 
and  horses  to  divert  the  others  and  keep  them  from  running  off. 
One  of  my  men  had  been  terribly  wounded  and  left,  after  holding 
on  for  an  hour  afterward.  Fifteen  Free  State  men,  all  told,  were  all 
that  remained  on  and  near  the  ground  at  the  time  the  surrender 
was  made;  and  it  was  made  to  nine  men  only,  myself  included  in 
that  number.  Twenty-five  of  the  enemy,  including  two  men  terribly 
wounded,  were  made  prisoners.  Capt.  Pate  reproaches  me  with 
the  most  dishonorable  violation  of  the  rights  secured  under  a  flag 
of  truce,  but  says:  "My  object  was  to  gain  time,  and  if  possible  have 
hostilities  suspended  for  a  while."  So  much,  in  his  own  language, 
for  good  faith,  of  which  he  found  me  so  destitute.  Now  for  my  own 
dishonorable  violation  of  the  flag  of  truce:  When  I  first  saw  it  I  had 
just  been  to  the  six  discouraged  men  above  named,  and  started  at 
once  to  meet  it,  being  at  that  moment  from  sixty  to  eighty  rods 
from  the  enemy's  camp,  and  met  it  about  half  way  carried  by  two 
men,  one  a  Free  State  man,  a  prisoner  of  theirs;  the  other  was  young 
Turner,  of  whom  Capt.  Pate  speaks  in  such  high  terms.  I  think 
him  as  brave  as  Capt.  Pate  represents.  Of  his  disposition  and  char 
acter  in  other  respects  I  say  nothing  now.  The  country  and  the 
world  may  probably  know  more  hereafter.  I  at  once  learned  from 
those  bearing  the  flag  of  truce  that  in  reality  they  had  no  other 
design  than  to  divert  me  and  consume  time  by  getting  me  to  go  to 
their  camp  to  hear  explanations.  I  then  told  young  James  to  stand 
by  me  with  his  arms,  saying,  "  We  are  both  equally  exposed  to  the 
fire  of  both  parties,"  and  sent  their  prisoner  back  to  tell  the  Cap 
tain  that,  if  he  had  any  proposal  to  make,  to  come  at  once  and  make 
it.  He  also  came  armed  to  where  I  and  young  James  were  —  some 
forty  or  fifty  rods  from  either  party  and  I  alone.  He  immediately 
began  to  tell  about  his  authority  from  the  General  Government,  by 
way  of  explanation,  as  he  said.  I  replied  that  I  should  listen  to  no 
thing  of  that  kind,  and  that,  if  he  had  any  proposal  to  make,  I  would 
hear  it  at  once,  and  that,  if  he  had  none  for  me,  I  had  one  for  him, 
and  that  was  immediate  and  unconditional  surrender.  I  then  said 
to  him  and  young  James,  (both  well  armed,)  "You  must  go  down 
to  your  camp,  and  there  all  of  you  lay  down  your  arms,"  when  the 
three  started,  they  continuing  armed  until  the  full  surrender  was 
made.  I,  an  old  man,  of  nearly  sixty  years,  and  fully  exposed  to  the 
weapons  of  two  young  men  at  my  side,  as  well  as  the  fire  of  their 
men  in  their  camp,  so  far,  and  no  further,  took  them  prisoners 
under  their  flag  of  truce.  On  our  way  to  their  camp,  as  we  passed 
within  hailing  distance  of  the  eight  men,  who  had  kept  their  posi 
tion  firm,  I  directed  them  to  pass  down  the  ravine  in  front  of  the 
enemy's  camp,  about  twenty  rods  off,  to  receive  the  surrender.  Such 
was  my  violation  of  the  flag  of  truce.  Let  others  judge.  I  had  not 


206  JOHN  BROWN 

during  the  time  of  the  above  transactions  with  Capt.  Pate  and  his 
flag  of  truce  a  single  man  secreted  near  me  who  could  have  possibly 
have  pointed  a  rifle  at  Capt.  Pate,  nor  a  man  nearer  than  forty  rods 
till  we  came  near  their  camp.  Capt.  Pate  complains  of  our  treat 
ment  in  regard  to  cooking,  &c,  but  forgets  to  say  that,  after  the  fight 
was  over,  when  I  and  some  of  my  men  had  eaten  only  once  in  nearly 
forty-eight  hours,  we  first  of  all  gave  Capt.  Pate  and  his  men  as 
good  a  dinner  as  we  could  obtain  for  them,  I  being  the  last  man  to 
take  a  morsel.  During  the  time  we  kept  them  it  was  with  difficulty 
I  could  keep  enough  men  in  camp  away  from  their  business  and 
their  families  to  guard  our  prisoners;  I  being  myself  obliged  to  stand 
guard  six  hours  —  between  four  in  the  afternoon  and  six  in  the 
morning.  We  were  so  poorly  supplied  with  provisions  that  the  best 
we  could  possibly  do  was  to  let  our  prisoners  use  their  own  provi 
sions;  and  as  for  tents,  we,  for  the  most  part,  had  none,  while  we 
sent  a  team  and  brought  in  theirs,  which  they  occupied  exclusively. 
Capt.  Pate  and  his  men  had  burned  or  carried  off  my  own  tent, 
where  one  of  my  sons  lived,  with  all  its  contents,  provisions  &c, 
some  four  or  five  days  before  the  fight.  We  did  not  search  our  pris 
oners,  nor  take  from  them  one  cent  of  their  money,  a  watch,  or  any 
thing  but  arms,  horses,  and  military  stores.  I  would  ask  Capt.  Pate 
and  his  men  how  our  people  fared  at  their  hands  at  Lawrence, 
Osawattamie,  Brown's  Station,  and  elsewhere,  my  two  sons,  John, 
jr.,  and  Jason  Brown,  being  of  the  number?  We  never  had,  at  any 
time,  near  Capt.  Pate,  or  where  his  men  were,  to  exceed  half  the 
number  he  states.  We  had  only  three  men  wounded  in  the  fight, 
and  all  of  those  have  nearly  recovered,  and  not  one  killed  or  since 
dead.  See  his  statement.  I  am  sorry  that  a  young  man  of  good  ac 
quirements  and  fair  abilities  should,  by  his  own  statement,  know 
ingly  and  wilfully  made,  do  himself  much  greater  injury  than  he 
even  accuses  "Old  Brown"  of  doing  him.  He  is  most  welcome  to 
all  the  satisfaction  which  his  treatment  of  myself  and  family  before 
the  fight,  his  polite  and  gentlemanly  return  for  my  own  treatment 
of  himself  and  his  men  have  called  forth  since  he  was  a  prisoner, 
and  released  by  Col.  Sumner,  can  possibly  afford  to  his  honorable 
and  ingenuous  mind.  I  have  also  seen  a  brief  notice  of  this  affair 
by  Lieutenant  Brockett,  and  it  affords  me  real  satisfaction  to  say 
that  I  do  not  see  a  single  sentence  in  it  that  is  in  the  least  degree 
characterized  by  either  direct  or  indirect  untruthfulness.  I  will 
add  that  when  Capt.  Pate's  sword  and  pistols  were  taken  from  him 
at  his  camp,  he  particularly  requested  me  to  take  them  into  my  own 
care,  which  I  did,  and  returned  them  to  him  when  Col.  Sumner  took 
him  and  his  men  from  us.  I  subjoin  a  copy  of  an  agreement  made 
with  Capt.  Shore  and  myself  by  Capt.  Pate  and  his  Lieutenant 
Brocket,  in  regard  to  exchange  of  prisoners  taken  by  both  parties, 
which  agreement  Col.  Sumner  did  not  require  the  Pro-Slavery 
party  to  comply  with.  A  good  illustration  of  governmental  pro 
tection  to  the  people  of  Kansas  from  the  first: 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        207 

(Copy) 

This  is  an  article  of  agreement  between  Captains  John  Brown, 
sen.,  and  Samuel  T.  Shore  of  the  first  part,  and  Capt.  H.  C.  Pate 
and  Lieut.  W.  B.  Brocket  of  the  second  part,  and  witnesses,  that 
in  consideration  of  the  fact  that  the  parties  of  the  first  part  have 
a  number  of  Capt.  Pate's  company  prisoners  that  they  agree  to 
give  up  and  fully  liberate  one  of  their  prisoners  for  one  of  those 
lately  arrested  near  Stanton,  Osawattamie,  and  Potawatamie  and 
so  on,  one  of  the  former  for  one  of  the  latter  alternately  until 
all  are  liberated.  It  is  understood  and  agreed  by  the  parties  that 
the  sons  of  Capt.  John  Brown,  sen,  Capt.  John  Brown,  jr.,  and 
Jason  Brown,  are  to  be  among  the  liberated  parties  (if  not  already 
liberated),  and  are  to  be  exchanged  for  Capt.  Pate  and  Lieut. 
Brocket  respectively.  The  prisoners  are  to  be  brought  on  neutral 
ground  and  exchanged.  It  is  agreed  that  the  neutral  ground  shall 
be  at  or  near  the  house  of  John  T.  or  Ottawa  Jones  of  this  Terri 
tory,  and  that  those  who  have  been  arrested,  and  have  been  liber 
ated,  will  be  considered  in  the  same  light  as  those  not  liberated, 
but  they  must  appear  in  person  or  answer  in  writing  that  they 
are  at  liberty.  The  arms,  particularly  the  side  arms,  of  each  one 
exchanged,  are  to  be  returned  with  the  prisoners,  also  the  horses 
so  far  as  practicable. 

(Signed) 

JOHN  BROWN, 

'   ,  S.  T.  SHORE, 

H.  C.  PATE, 
W.  B.  BROCKET. 
PRAIRIE  CITY,  KANSAS  TER'Y.   June  2,  A.  D.,  1856. 

Captain  Pate,  after  his  interview  with  Brown  in  jail  at 
Charlestown,  to  which  he  had  three  witnesses,  obtained  their 
signatures  to  an  account  of  the  Black  Jack  fight  which  in  some 
respects  is  obviously  erroneous;  in  it  he  endeavors  to  repre 
sent  that  John  Brown  admitted  that  the  flag  of  truce  was  vio 
lated.  Unfortunately  for  Pate's  reputation  as  a  chronicler,  his 
pamphlet  is  frankly  partisan.  Moreover,  there  were  several 
witnesses  who  testified  that  Pate  ordered  his  men  to  lay  down 
their  arms,  instead  of  risking  death  by  silence,  as  he  avers. 

The  crux  of  the  "  battle"  of  Black  Jack  came  when  John 
Brown  ordered  Shore's  men  to  shoot  Pate's  horses  and  mules. 
As  soon  as  he  noticed  this  going  on,  Frederick  Brown,  who  had 
been  left  behind  with  the  horses,  could  no  longer  contain  him 
self  in  inactivity,  but,  mounting  one  of  the  animals  and  bran 
dishing  his  sword,  rode  around  Pate's  camp  with  his  horse  at 


208  JOHN  BROWN 

a  run,  crying  out,  "Father,  we  have  got  them  surrounded  and 
have  cut  off  their  communications!"  Frederick  Brown  was  a 
large  man,  and  on  this  occasion  he  acted  in  such  a  wild  manner 
as  to  give  rise  to  the  charge  that  he  was  not  of  sound  mind. 
His  extraordinary  appearance  undoubtedly  frightened  Pate's 
men,  who  naturally  believed  that  he  had  other  men  behind 
him  and  that  they  were  really  surrounded.  They  fired  a  num 
ber  of  shots  at  him  in  vain,  and  it  was  only  a  few  minutes  after 
this  that  they  raised  the  flag  of  truce  and  the  firing  ceased.  It 
is  interesting  to  note  that  among  those  who  ran  away  with 
Shore's  men  was  James  Townsley,  the  first  to  tell  the  story  of 
the  Pottawatomie  murders.  Pate's  Free  Soil  prisoners  were  of 
course  at  once  released  by  John  Brown,  after  having  been 
under  fire  throughout  the  engagement,  which  ended  between 
one  and  two  o'clock.  Among  them,  besides  the  preacher  Moore, 
was  a  Dr.  Graham,  who  had  been  shot  through  the  leg  in  en 
deavoring  to  escape.  He  was  not  sufficiently  hurt,  however,  to 
prevent  his  attending  to  the  wounded,  of  whom  Henry  Thomp 
son  was  the  most  seriously  injured.  After  the  battle,  Shore's 
men  returned,  and  with  them  the  company  known  as  the  Law 
rence  "Stubbs,"  under  Captain  J.  B.  Abbott,  a  well-known 
Lawrence  fighter,  who  had  marched  as  rapidly  as  possible  in 
order  to  succor  Brown.  Owen  Brown  estimates  that  this  rein 
forcement  amounted  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and  in  this 
he  is  probably  not  far  wrong.  As  John  Brown  himself  put  it : 

"After  the  fight,  numerous  Free  State  men  who  could  not  be  got 
out  before  were  on  hand;  and  some  of  them  I  am  ashamed  to  add, 
were  very  busy  not  only  with  the  plunder  of  our  enemies,  but  with 
our  private  effects,  leaving  us,  while  guarding  our  prisoners  and 
providing  in  regard  to  them,  much  poorer  than  before  the  battle."' 

"We  were  taken,"  records  Pate,  "to  a  camp  on  Middle  Ot 
tawa  Creek  and  closely  guarded.  We  had  to  cook  for  ourselves, 
furnish  provisions,  and  sleep  on  the  ground,  but  we  were  not 
treated  unkindly.  Here  we  remained  for  three  days  and  nights, 
until  Colonel  Sumner  at  the  head  of  a  company  of  Dragoons 
released  us  from  our  imprisonment."  25 

Colonel  Sumner  officially  reported  from  Leavenworth,  on 
June  5,  his  rescue  of  Pate's  command,  and  his  heading  off 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  men  under  General  Whitfield 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        209 

and  General  Coffee,  of  the  militia,  who,  as  we  have  already 
seen  from  Whitfield's  letter,  were  bent  on  rescuing  Captain 
Pate.  Colonel  Sumner's  force  was  only  fifty  men.  With  him 
were  Major  Sedgwick  and  Lieutenant  Stuart,  who  thus  met 
Pate  and  Brown.  Colonel  Sumner  records  the  prompt  dispersal 
of  Brown's  men,  and  his  surprise  at  finding  General  Whit- 
field,  a  Member  of  Congress,  and  General  Coffee,  of  the  Militia, 
at  the  head  of  the  advancing  Border  Ruffians.  He  informed 
them  that  he  was  there, 

"by  order  of  the  President,  and  the  proclamation  of  the  Governor, 
to  disperse  all  armed  bodies  assembled  without  authority;  and  fur 
ther,  that  my  duty  was  perfectly  plain,  and  would  certainly  be  done. 
I  then  requested  General  Coffee  to  assemble  his  people,  and  I  read 
to  them  the  President's  despatch  and  the  governor's  proclamation. 
The  general  then  said  that  he  should  not  resist  the  authority  of  the 
general  government,  and  that  his  party  would  disperse,  and  shortly 
afterwards  they  moved  off.  Whether  this  is  a  final  dispersion  of  these 
lawless  armed  bodies,  is  very  doubtful.  If  the  proclamation  of  the 
Governor  had  been  issued  six  months  earlier,  and  had  been  rightly 
maintained,  these  difficulties  would  have  been  avoided.  As  the  mat 
ter  now  stands,  there  is  great  danger  of  a  serious  commotion."26 

Major  Sedgwick  recorded  the  dispersal  of  Brown's  band  in 
the  following  words: 

"Things  are  getting  worse  every  day,  and  it  is  hard  to  foresee  the 
result.  One  of  these  things  must  happen:  either  it  will  terminate 
in  civil  war  or  the  vicious  will  band  themselves  together  to  plunder 
and  murder  all  whom  they  meet.  The  day  after  writing  my  last 
letter  I  started  with  a  squadron  of  cavalry  to  go  about  forty  miles 
to  break  up  an  encampment  of  free-soilers  who  had  been  robbing 
and  taking  prisoners  any  pro-slavery  man  they  could  meet.  I  pro 
ceeded  to  the  place,  and  when  within  a  short  distance  two  of  their 
principal  men  came  out  and  wanted  to  make  terms.  They  were  told 
that  no  terms  would  be  made  with  lawless  and  armed  men,  but 
that  they  must  give  up  their  prisoners  and  disperse  at  once.  We 
marched  into  their  camp,  situated  on  a  small  island  and  entrenched, 
and  found  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  and  twenty  prisoners, 
who  were  released  and  the  men  dispersed."27 

It  was  John  Brown  himself  who  came  out  and  endeav 
ored  to  negotiate  with  the  forces  of  the  United  States  as  if 
he  were  in  control  of  a  coordinate  body.  It  was  he,  too,  who 
had  insisted  on  the  camp's  being  so  heavily  entrenched.  On 
June  3  he  had  directed  the  pillaging  of  the  store  of  one  J.  M. 


210  JOHN  BROWN 

Bernard  at  Centropolis,  he  being  a  pro-slavery  sympathizer,  in 
order,  Brown's  devoted  follower  Bondi  declared: 

"to  improve  our  exterior,  the  Brown  outfit  being  altogether  in  rags. 
Frederick  and  Oliver  Brown  and  three  members  of  the  Stubbs  were 
the  raiding  party.  They  returned  with  some  palm-leaf  hats,  check 
shirts,  linen  coats,  a  few  linen  pants,  and  bandanna  handkerchiefs." 28 

To  the  victors  belonged  the  spoils.  Since  it  was  now  "war" 
in  deadly  earnest,  the  raiding  of  the  country  for  supplies  was, 
in  John  Brown's  opinion,  wholly  justified,  as  had  already  been 
the  "impressing"  of  pro-slavery  horses.  Within  one  hour  sub 
sequent  to  the  interview  between  Sumner  and  Brown,  re 
ported  Bondi,  Camp  Brown  had  ceased  to  exist,  and  this  hasty 
movement  was  not  delayed  by  Salmon  Brown's  accidentally 
shooting  himself  in  the  right  shoulder.  Subsequently,  Colonel 
Sumner  was  severely  criticised  by  the  pro-slavery  men  for  not 
having  arrested  Brown.  He  had,  however,  no  warrants  for 
anybody's  arrest,  and  there  was  with  his  command  a  deputy 
United  States  marshal,  William  J.  Preston  by  name.  The  lat 
ter  seems  to  have  been  afraid,  even  in  the  presence  of  troops, 
to  serve  the  warrants  he  had  with  him.29  Salmon  Brown 
and  Henry  Thompson  testify  that  Colonel  Sumner  told  John 
Brown  that  Preston  had  warrants  and  that  they  would  be 
served  in  his  presence.  Then  he  ordered  Preston  to  proceed. 
"I  do  not  recognize  any  one  for  whom  I  have  warrants,"  re 
plied  the  deputy  marshal.  "Then  what  are  you  here  for?" 
asked  Colonel  Sumner  indignantly.30 

The  Brown  family  did  not  move  far  after  being  ordered 
to  disperse.  The  wounded  Salmon  was  taken  to  Carpenter's 
near-by  cabin  and  nursed  by  Bondi ;  the  others,  with  Weiner, 
camped  in  a  thicket  about  half  a  mile  from  the  abandoned 
Camp  Brown.  On  June  8  Bondi  rejoined  them,  Salmon  being 
no  longer  in  need  of  his  services,  and  was  at  once  asked  to  visit 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Jason  Brown,  then  prisoners  in  Captain 
Wood's  near-by  camp.  At  their  request  Bondi  visited  the 
Adairs  and  found  the  Brown  women  safe  at  the  residence  of 
David  Garrison,  a  neighbor.  On  Thursday,  June  10,  Bondi 
had  returned  to  John  Brown,  and  at  a  council  held  that  day 
it  was  agreed  to  separate.  Weiner  had  business  in  Louisiana; 
Henry  Thompson  was  also  taken  to  Carpenter's  cabin,  and 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        211 

Bondi  accompanied  Weiner  as  far  as  Leavenworth  on  the  lat- 
ter's  way  to  St.  Louis.  He  then  returned  to  the  seat  of  war. 
John  Brown  and  his  unwounded  sons  remained  hidden  in  the 
thickets. 

Governor  Shannon,  on  hearing  of  the  Black  Jack  episode, 
reported  it  to  President  Pierce  as  a  sign  of  the  unrest  of  the  Ter 
ritory,  with  a  comment  that  could  hardly  have  gratified  Cap 
tain  Pate,  for  it  charged  him  with  being  "  at  the  head  of  an  un 
authorized  company."  31  This  weak  Governor  was  not  having 
a  particularly  easy  time  of  it.  The  Territory  was  seething  with 
lawlessness.  The  administration  at  Washington  was  getting 
restless  in  view  of  the  outburst  of  anger  in  the  North  over  the 
sacking  of  Lawrence.  Indeed,  on  May  23,  before  the  news  of 
this  raid  had  reached  Washington,  President  Pierce  sent  two 
despatches  32  to  Governor  Shannon  which  betray  his  extreme 
nervousness.  He  wished  to  know  if  it  was  true  that  Marshal 
Donaldson  was  near  Lawrence,  if  it  had  been  necessary  to 
use  troops  to  enforce  writs,  and,  if  so,  whether  other  forces 
besides  those  of  Sumner  and  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke,  of  the  Dra 
goons,  had  been  called  in.  In  his  second  despatch  he  urged 
Governor  Shannon  to  "repress  lawless  violence  in  whatever 
form  it  may  manifest  itself,"  and  it  was  this  despatch  which 
Colonel  Sumner  read  to  General  Whitfield,  together  with  Shan 
non's  proclamation  commanding  "all  persons  belonging  to 
military  organizations  within  this  Territory,  not  authorized 
by  the  laws  thereof,  to  disperse  and  retire  peaceably  to  their 
respective  abodes,"  under  penalty  of  being  dispersed  by  the 
United  States  troops.  Shannon  further  ordered  33  that  all  law- 
abiding  citizens,  without  regard  to  party  names  and  distinc 
tions,  should  be  protected  in  their  persons  and  property,  and 
that  "all  aggressing  parties  from  without  the  Territory  must 
be  repelled."  It  is  only  fair  to  Shannon  to  add  that  he  made 
requisitions  for  sufficient  United  States  troops,  and  urged  upon 
their  commanders  that  the  country  to  the  south  of  Lawrence 
be  properly  protected.  When  Shannon's  proclamation  was 
two  days  old,  President  Pierce  again  telegraphed  to  the  Gov 
ernor  :  ' '  Maintain  the  laws  firmly  and  impartially,  and  take  care 
that  no  good  citizen  has  just  ground  to  complain  of  the  want 
of  protection."  34 

Despite  these  admonitions  and  the  activity  of  the  troops, 


212  JOHN  BROWN 

the  disorders  continued.  Early  in  the  morning  of  the  5th  of 
June,  Major  Abbott,  with  his  Wakarusa  company  of  Free  State 
men  and  a  body  of  Lawrence  youths,  assailed  Franklin,  four 
and  a  half  miles  from  Lawrence,  where  were  some  Missourians 
charged  with  being  members  of  the  Law  and  Order  party  and 
with  having  amassed  considerable  plunder. 35  1 1  was,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Free  State  men,  a  "  mischievous  camp."  The  pro-slavery 
men,  who  had  one  man  killed  and  several  wounded,  defended 
themselves  with  a  cannon,  but  inflicted  no  loss  on  their  assail 
ants.  The  Wakarusa  company  arrived  too  late  to  take  part 
in  the  fighting,  and  busied  itself  in  levying  on  the  stores  of  the 
pro-slavery  men,  loading  a  wagon  with  all  the  rifles,  powder, 
caps,  flour,  bacon,  coffee,  sugar,  etc.,  that  could  be  found.  They 
made  Franklin,  says  Andreas,  "too  hot  for  the  enemy,  and 
compelled  them  to  evacuate."  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
this  and  similar  robberies  by  Free  State  men  were  treated  in 
the  Northern  press  and  by  subsequent  historians  as  absolutely 
proper  and  legitimate  acts  of  war,  while  similar  outrages  on 
the  part  of  the  pro-slavery  forces  were  pictured  as  too  terrible  to 
be  borne.  Thus  Bondi  relates  that  the  final  pro-slavery  wrong 
doing,  which  led  John  Brown  to  leave  his  camp  and  march  after 
Pate,  was  the  entering  of  a  Free  State  house  by  three  of  Pate's 
men  and  their  stealing  the  guns  of  the  seven  Free  Soilers  who 
occupied  it.  "It  was  impossible,"  says  Bondi,  "  to  put  up  with 
such  a  shameful  outrage,"  36  —  especially  so  for  the  men  who 
bore  the  guilt  of  the  Pottawatomie  murders.  Later  on  in  his 
reminiscences,  Bondi  relates  with  great  gusto  how  he  and  his 
companions,  when  in  need  of  fresh  meat,  sought  out  "Dutch 
Henry"  Sherman's  herd  of  cattle  and  killed  what  they  needed 
without  asking  any  one's  permission.  This  was,  of  course,  a 
justifiable  act  of  war,  in  his  opinion.  The  dispersal  of  Free 
State  forces  by  Federal  troops  was  always  an  outrage;  similar 
treatment  of  the  pro-slavery  bands,  just  and  proper. 

Two  days  after  the  Free  State  attack  on  Franklin,  Whit- 
field's  men,  returning  to  Missouri,  reached  Osawatomie  just 
after  Major  Sedgwick,  with  a  company  of  dragoons,  had  left 
it  on  his  return  to  Fort  Leavenworth.  They  seized  the  oppor 
tunity  to  take  revenge  for  the  Pottawatomie  murders.  Every 
house  was  entered  and  pillaged,  women  being  robbed  even 
of  earrings,  and  fourteen  horses  were  stolen,37  thus  justifying 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        213 

Colonel  Sumner's  fears  as  to  the  genuineness  of  Whitfield's 
promise  to  disperse  his  men.  That  anything  was  left  standing 
was  due  to  fear  that  United  States  troops  might  appear.  After 
an  hour  and  a  half  of  terrorizing  women  and  children  and  the 
few  men  left  at  home,  Whitfield's  forces  moved  on,  laden  with 
booty,  and  finally  disbanded  on  reaching  Westport.  As  this 
town  lies  to  the  northeast  of  Prairie  City,  and  Osawatomie  far 
to  the  southeast,  it  is  obvious  that  Whitfield  deliberately  dis 
obeyed  Sumner's  instructions  to  leave  the  Territory,  and  went 
out  of  his  way  to  revenge  upon  the  Free  State  settlement  at 
Osawatomie  the  Pottawatomie  murders  that  were  the  original 
reason  for  his  and  Pate's  entry  into  Kansas.  Sumner  was  nat 
urally  indignant,  so  the  Tribune  reported  on  June  23,  when 
he  heard  of  Whitfield's  breach  of  faith;  but  the  mischief  was 
then  done,  and  Whitfield  doubled  on  his  tracks  and  returned 
safely  to  Westport.  This  Whitfield  raid,  while  unaccompa 
nied  by  loss  of  life,  by  itself  wholly  disposes  of  the  conten 
tion  of  James  Freeman  Clarke  and  others  that  after  John 
Brown's  murders  "the  country  had  peace."  Certainly  it  is 
plain  proof  that  the  killings  of  the  Doyles,  Sherman  and  Wil 
kinson,  far  from  stopping  the  aggressiveness  of  the  Border 
Ruffians,  brought  down  their  especial  vengeance  upon  Brown's 
Free  State  neighbors. 

Even  before  they  plundered  Osawatomie,  Whitfield's  men 
were  credited  with  one  of  the  worst  crimes  of  this  bloody 
period.  They  had  tried  one  Cantrall,  a  Missourian,  on  the 
charge  of  "treason  to  Missouri,"  for  sympathizing  with  and 
aiding  the  Free  State  forces  at  Black  Jack,  although  he  was  not 
an  actual  participant  in  the  engagement.  After  a  mock  court- 
martial,  Cantrall  was  taken  into  a  near-by  ravine.  Other  pris 
oners  of  Whitfield  reported  afterwards  that  there  was  a  "shot, 
followed  by  the  cry,  *O  God!  I  am  shot!  I  am  murdered/ 
Then  there  was  another  shot  followed  by  a  long  scream ;  then 
another  shot  and  all  was  silent."  One  of  the  prisoners  escaped 
and  told  this  story,  and  the  body  was  found  in  the  ravine  with 
three  bullet-holes  in  the  breast.38  Lieut.-Col.  Philip  St.  George 
Cooke,  commanding  the  Second  Dragoons,  the  other  Federal 
regiment  in  Kansas,  reported  officially  on  June  18  that  "the 
disorders  in  the  Territory  have,  in  fact,  changed  their  charac 
ter,  and  consist  now  of  robberies  and  assassinations,  by  a  set 


214  JOHN  BROWN 

of  bandits  whom  the  excitement  of  the  times  has  attracted 
hither."39  W.  A.  Phillips,  one  of  the  best  of  the  contempo 
rary  chroniclers,  wrote  that  during  the  period  between  the 
Pottawatomie  murders  and  June  18, 

"proslavery  parties  stealthily  prowled  through  the  territory  or 
hung  upon  the  Missouri  borders.  Outrages  were  so  common  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  enumerate  them.  Murders  were  frequent, 
many  of  them  passing  secretly  and  unrecorded ;  some  of  them  only 
revealed  by  the  discovery  of  some  mouldering  remains  of  mortality. 
Two  men,  found  hanging  on  a  tree  near  Westport,  ill-fated  free- 
state  settlers,  were  taken  down  and  buried  by  the  troops;  but  so 
shallow  was  the  grave  that  the  prairie  wolves  dug  them  up  and 
partly  devoured  them,  before  they  were  again  found  and  buried."  40 

Lieutenant  James  Mclntosh,  First  Cavalry,  reported  on 
June  13,  from  Palmyra,  that  a  great  many  robberies  were  being 
committed  on  the  various  roads,  and  one  detachment  of  his 
men  reported  to  him  that  at  Cedar  Creek,  twenty-five  miles 
away, 

"several  men  were  lying  murdered.  They  saw  the  body  of  one  who 
they  knew  from  his  dress  to  be  a  Mr.  Carter,  who  was  taken  pris 
oner  from  this  place  a  few  nights  ago.  This  body  was  shown  to  them 
by  a  member  of  one  of  the  companies  who  was  under  the  influence 
of  liquor,  and  who  told  my  men  that  he  could  point  out  the  other 
abolitionists  if  they  wished  to  see  them."  41 

O.  C.  Brown,  the  founder  of  Osawatomie,  wrote  on  June 
24,  1856,  that  for  thirty  days  (since  Pottawatomie)  there  had 
been  a  "reign  of  terror." 

"Hundreds of  men,"  he  declared,  "have come  from  Missouri,  and 
the  Southern  and  pauper  crowd  that  live  by  plunder  are  hunting 
down  the  supposed  murderers  at  Pottawatomie.  But  almost  daily 
murders  are  committed  near  Westport  and  nothing  done."  He 
added :  "Keep  us  in  flour  and  bacon  and  we  can  stand  it  a  good  pull 
longer.  .  .  .  Remember  that  now,  now,  now,  is  the  time  to  render 
us  aid."  42 

There  is  other  contemporary  testimony  to  the  straits  to 
which  John  Brown's  act  reduced  Osawatomie. 

Free  Soilers  in  numbers  were  stopped  and  turned  out  of 
the  Territory  when  caught  near  the  border.  One  John  A. 
Baillie  was  shot  and  badly  injured,  besides  being  robbed  of 
his  possessions.43  A  young  man  named  Hill  was  similarly 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        215 

robbed,  and  then  bound  and  barbarously  gagged.44  Another 
victim  of  Border  Ruffian  fury  was  strung  up  to  a  tree  only 
to  be  let  down  again.  The  list  of  murders  runs  all  through 
the  summer.  A  young  Free  Soil  Kentuckian  named  Hopkins 
was  deliberately  killed  in  Lawrence  on  June  16  by  a  deputy 
sheriff  named  Haine,  or  Haynau,  a  notorious  bully.45  William 
Gay,  an  Indian  Agent,  was  murdered  two  miles  from  West- 
port,  on  June  21,  by  three  strangers,  who  blazed  away  at  him 
as  soon  as  they  discovered,  after  drinking  with  him,  that  he 
was  from  Michigan.46  Laben  Parker  was  shot,  stabbed  and 
hanged,  his  dangling  body  being  found  July  24,  eleven  miles 
from  Tecumseh,  with  this  placard  upon  it:  "Let  all  those 
who  are  going  to  vote  against  slavery  take  warning ! "  47  Major 
David  S.  Hoyt,  formerly  of  Deerfield,  Massachusetts,  was 
killed  August  1 1 ,  on  his  return  to  Lawrence  from  the  Georgian 
camp  on  Washington  Creek,  which  he  had  entered  on  a  mis 
sion  of  peace.  A  corrosive  acid  was  thrown  upon  his  face,  and 
his  body,  half-buried,  was  torn  by  wild  beasts.  His  object 
had  been  to  ask  that  the  Georgians  join  the  people  of  Law 
rence  in  stopping  just  such  crimes.48 

But  the  worst  of  all  this  terrible  list  of  inhuman  outrages, 
the  one  that  infuriated  the  Free  State  men  beyond  all  else, 
was  the  killing,  on  August  17,  of  William  Hoppe,  a  brother- 
in-law  of  the  Rev.  Ephraim  Nute,  the  Unitarian  minister  of 
Lawrence.  Hoppe  was  shot  in  his  buggy,  when  within  two 
miles  of  Leavenworth,  by  a  follower  of  General  Atchison, 
named  Fugit  or  Fugert.49  This  wretch  had  made  a  bet  of  six 
dollars  to  a  pair  of  boots  that  he  would  go  out  and  return 
with  the  scalp  of  an  Abolitionist  within  two  hours.  He  asked 
but  one  question  of  his  victim.  When  Hoppe  replied  that  he 
was  from  Lawrence,  Fugit  shot  him  and  scalped  him,  with 
an  Indian's  dexterity,  without  waiting  even  to  ascertain  if 
Hoppe  was  dead.  Brandishing  the  bloody  scalp,  Fugit  rode 
back  and  received  his  boots.  In  May,  1857,  he  was  arrested 
at  Leavenworth  and  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  murder!  For 
downright  atrocities  committed  on  individuals,  the  pro-slavery 
men  were  infinitely  worse  than  the  Free  State,  even  remem 
bering  the  Pottawatomie  killings. 

There  were,  however,  plenty  of  Free  State  guerrillas  at 
work.  Charles  Lenhart  and  John  E.  Cook  (who  later  perished 


216  JOHN  BROWN 

on  the  scaffold  at  Charlestown)  were  members  of  a  well- 
mounted  body  of  "cavalry  scouts"  of  about  twenty  young 
men  who  ranged  about  the  country.60  The  stealing  of  cattle 
and  horses  went  on  fearlessly  on  both  sides.51  "The  substance 
of  the  Territory  is  devoured  by  the  roving,  roystering  bands 
of  guerrilla  fighters  who,  under  the  plea  that  war  prevails,  per 
petrate  deeds  of  robbery,  rapine,  slaughter  and  pillage  that 
nothing  can  justify,"  reported  the  St.  Louis  Evening  News 
early  in  June.  It  added  that  the  "body  of  good  citizens,  once 
numerous  in  the  Territory,  who  sided  with  neither  party, 
but  attended  to  their  own  affairs,  regardless  of  the  issue  of 
the  dispute,  is  not  now  to  be  found.  Every  man  has  been 
compelled  to  join  one  party  or  the  other,  and  to  become  active 
in  its  behalf."  This  referred,  of  course,  both  to  the  Free  Soil- 
ers  and  to  the  non-slaveholding  pro-slavery  men  who  wished 
to  mind  their  own  business.  "All  over  the  Territory,"  the 
Evening  News  truthfully  said,  "along  the  roadside,  houses 
are  deserted  and  farms  abandoned,  and  nowhere  are  there 
visible  evidences  of  industry."  52  The  Boonsville,  Missouri, 
Observer  was  of  the  opinion  that  "unless  the  United  States 
Government  rigorously  interposes  its  authority  in  behalf  of 
peace  and  order,  the  horrors  of  civil  war  will  rage  on,  and 
we  fear  accumulate  to  such  an  extent  as  to  imperil  the 
Union."63 

The  pro-slavery  circular  of  June  21,  signed  by  Atchison, 
Buford  and  Stringfellow,  presented  the  Southern  view  of  the 
situation  thus: 

"The  [Pottawatomie]  outrages  above  specified  were  preceded, 
and  up  to  the  present  time  have  been  followed  by  others  of  a  like 
character,  and  dictated  by  a  like  settled  policy  on  the  part  of  our 
enemies  to  harrass  and  frighten  by  their  deeds  of  horror,  our  friends 
from  their  homes  in  the  Territory.  Undoubtedly  this  policy  (a  well 
settled  party  system)  has  dictated  the  notices  lately  given  in  all 
the  disturbed  districts,  by  armed  marauding  bands  of  abolition 
ists,  to  the  law  and  order  men  of  their  respective  neighborhoods, 
immediately  to  leave  the  country  on  peril  of  death.  Under  such 
notices,  our  friends  about  Hickory  Point  and  on  Pottowatomie  and 
Rock  Creeks,  have  all  been  driven  out  of  the  Territory,  their  stores 
have  been  robbed,  their  cattle  driven  off,  their  houses  burned,  their 
horses  stolen,  and  in  some  cases  they  have  been  assassinated  for 
daring  to  return.  Some,  too,  of  these  outrages,  have  been  perpe 
trated  under  the  very  nose  of  the  United  States  troops,  who  all  the 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        217 

while  assure  us  that  all  is  peace  and  quietness,  and  that  they  will 
afford  ample  protection,  without  the  necessity  of  our  banding  to 
gether  in  armed  bodies  for  mutual  defence."  " 

This  pro-slavery  criticism  of  the  United  States  troops  is  the 
more  interesting  because  the  Free  Soil  writers  of  the  period 
also  assail  the  regulars  and  accuse  them  of  sympathizing 
with  and  abetting  Border  Ruffian  outrages,  while  admitting 
that  Colonel  Summer's  and  Major  Sedgwick's  leanings  were 
toward  the  North.  The  latter  fact  probably  had  something 
to  do  with  Colonel  Sumner's  going  on  leave  on  July  15,  in  the 
midst  of  the  troubles,  and  his  turning  over  the  command  to 
Brigadier-General  Persifor  F.  Smith,  who  did  not,  however, 
take  the  field  in  person.  Colonel  Sumner's  disrepute  with  the 
pro-slavery  Pierce  administration  is  very  plain.  In  his  annual 
report  for  1856,  Jefferson  Davis  pointedly  praised  Lieut.- 
Col.  Cooke  and  avoided  all  mention  of  Colonel  Sumner, 
beyond  printing  his  (Davis's)  censures  of  Colonel  Sumner  for 
having  dispersed  by  force  the  Topeka  Free  State  Legislature, 
in  harmony  with  the  proclamation  of  acting  Governor  Wood- 
son,55  and  positive  instructions  from  Governor  Shannon  to 
use  force  if  necessary.56  Colonel  Sumner  did  not  again  fig 
ure  prominently  in  the  Kansas  troubles.  If  Pierce  desired  a 
scapegoat  for  the  Kansas  lawlessness,  Colonel  Sumner  was 
the  natural  victim.  It  must  be  pointed  out,  however,  that 
Colonel  Sumner's  and  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke's  regiments  would 
not  have  been  large  enough  to  patrol  successfully  all  of  east 
ern  Kansas,  had  they  been  of  full  strength.  General  Smith 
reported  officially  on  August  22,  that  "Colonel  Sumner's 
regiment  cannot  now  muster  four  hundred  men,  including 
Captain  Stewart's  company,  on  its  way  to  Fort  Laramie,  and 
a  detachment  under  Lieutenant  Wharton,  en  route  for  Fort 
Kearney  with  the  Sioux  prisoners.  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke's  six 
companies  have  a  little  more  than  one  hundred  horses."  67 

The  breaking  up  of  the  Topeka  or  Free  State  Legislature 
Colonel  Sumner  declared  to  be  the  most  trying  episode  of  his 
long  military  career.58  Governor  Shannon  wrote  to  Colonel 
Sumner  on  June  23, 59  that  he  was  compelled  to  leave  the  Ter 
ritory  for  ten  days,  and  that  he  wished  him  to  use  his  com 
mand  in  the  most  effective  way  for  preserving  peace,  and  to 
be  sure  to  have  two  companies  at  Topeka  on  July  4.  Shannon 


218  JOHN  BROWN 

wrote  also  of  his  belief  that  if  the  Free  State  Legislature  as 
sembled  on  that  date,  it 

"would  produce  an  outbreak  more  fearful  by  far  in  its  conse 
quences  than  any  which  we  have  heretofore  witnessed.  .  .  .  Two 
governments  cannot  exist  at  one  and  the  same  time  in  this  Terri 
tory  in  practical  operation;  one  or  the  other  must  be  overthrown; 
and  the  struggle  between  the  legal  government  established  by  Con 
gress  and  that  by  the  Topeka  Constitution  would  result  in  a  civil 
war,  the  fearful  consequences  of  which  no  one  can  foresee.  Should 
this  body  reassemble  and  enact  laws  (and  they  can  have  no  other 
object  in  meeting),  they  will  be  an  illegal  body,  threatening  the 
peace  of  the  whole  country  and  therefore  should  be  dispersed" 

This  view  Colonel  Sumner  shared,  for  he  wrote  to  acting 
Governor  Woodson  on  June  28,  "I  am  decidedly  of  the  opin 
ion  that  that  body  of  men  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  assem 
ble.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  peace  of  the  country 
depends  upon  it."  Mr.  Woodson  then  issued  his  proclama 
tion  of  July  4,  forbidding  all  persons  "  claiming  legislative 
powers  and  authorities  .  .  .  from  assembling,  organizing 
or  attempting  to  organize  or  act  in  any  legislative  capacity 
whatever.  ..."  To  this  Colonel  Sumner  added  over  his 
own  name  these  words:  "The  proclamation  of  the  President 
and  the  order  under  it  require  me  to  sustain  the  Executive 
of  the  Territory  in  executing  the  laws  and  preserving  the 
peace.  I  therefore  hereby  announce  that  I  shall  maintain  the 
proclamation  at  all  hazards." 

Colonel  Sumner  had  been  so  completely  under  the  orders 
of  Governor  Shannon  that  he  believed  himself  wholly  justified 
in  carrying  out  Shannon's  and  Woodson's  instructions,  the 
latter  being  with  him  on  July  4,  and  directing  him  by  word 
of  mouth.  Moreover,  Jefferson  Davis,  who  had  praised  Colo 
nel  Sumner  on  May  23,  for  his  zeal,  had  assured  him  in  the 
same  letter  that  it  was  his  duty  to  maintain  "the  duly  au 
thorized  government  of  the  Territory,"  and  added  that  "for 
the  great  purpose  which  justifies  the  employment  of  military 
force,  it  matters  not  whether  the  subversion  of  the  law  arises 
from  a  denial  of  the  existence  of  the  government  "  or  from  law 
less  disregard  of  the  rights  of  persons  or  property.  The  Topeka 
Legislature  was  surely  in  itself  a  "denial  of  the  existence 
of  the  government,"  but  after  the  dispersal  of  the  Topeka 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        219 

Legislature,  Secretary  Davis  took,  on  August  27,  the  view 
that  Colonel  Sumner  had  exceeded  his  instructions,  and  disa 
vowed  the  dispersal  of  the  Legislature.  To  this  rebuke  Colonel 
Sumner  respectfully  replied  that  he  felt  bound  to  consider 
the  Topeka  Legislature  insurrectionary,  under  the  President's 
proclamation  of  February  II,  and,  therefore,  was  compelled 
to  suppress  it,  particularly  because,  as  he  pointed  out,  the 
principal  officers  of  the  Topeka  government  were  at  that 
moment  actually  under  arrest  for  high  treason. 

But  if  the  logic  was  on  Colonel  Sumner's  side,  the  authority 
was  on  Jefferson  Davis's;  a  scapegoat  was  wanted,  and  the 
veteran  of  thirty-seven  years'  service  was  at  hand.  Not  un 
naturally  it  was  believed  by  the  Free  Soil  men  that  Colonel 
Sumner's  expressions  of  regret  in  disbanding  the  Legislature, 
and  his  friendliness  for  the  North,  were  the  real  reasons  for 
his  being  given  leave,  and  for  the  censure  passed  upon  him. 
A  year  later,  a  new  Secretary  of  War  was  glad  to  entrust  to 
Sumner  the  command  of  an  important  and  successful  cam 
paign  against  the  Cheyenne  Indians. 

The  actual  dispersal  of  the  Legislature  was  dramatic.  In 
the  absence  of  the  Speaker  and  the  Chief  Clerk,  Samuel  F. 
Tappan,  the  Assistant  Clerk,  called  the  roll  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  July  4,  to  which  date  the  Legislature  had 
adjourned  on  March  4.  Seventeen  members  answered  to  their 
names.  As  Tappan  knew  there  were  others  in  the  town,  he 
ordered  the  sergeant-at-arms  to  summon  the  rest.  Colonel 
Sumner  then  rose  and  said: 

"Gentlemen:  This  is  the  most  disagreeable  duty  of  my  whole 
life.  My  orders  are  to  disperse  the  Legislature,  and  I  am  here  to 
tell  you  that  it  must  not  meet,  and  to  see  it  dispersed.  God  knows 
I  have  no  partisan  feelings  in  the  matter,  and  I  will  have  none  so 
long  as  I  hold  my  present  position  in  Kansas.  I  have  just  returned 
from  the  border,  where  I  have  been  driving  out  bands  of  Missou- 
rians,  and  now  I  am  ordered  here  to  disperse  you.  You  must  dis 
perse.  This  body  cannot  be  permitted  to  meet  —  Disperse.  Let 
me  again  assure  you  that  this  is  the  most  disagreeable  duty  of  my 
whole  life." 60 

He  had  taken  ample  military  precautions,  for  he  had  con 
centrated  at  Topeka,  on  July  3,  five  companies  of  his  regiment 
and  two  pieces  of  artillery.  The  proclamation  of  the  acting 


220  JOHN  BROWN 

Governor  was  first  read  to  the  crowd  of  about  five  hundred 
men,  but  Colonel  Sumner's  hope  that  this  would  suffice  to  pre 
vent  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  was  vain ;  he  was  forced  to 
march  his  command  into  town,  draw  it  up  before  the  building 
in  which  the  Legislature  was  meeting,  and  array  it  in  the  face 
of  several  Free  State  volunteer  companies.  These  military 
manoeuvres  deeply  impressed  the  crowd,  for  Colonel  Sumner's 
bearing,  like  that  of  his  men,  was  eminently  businesslike  and 
soldierly. 

As  Colonel  Sumner  rode  away,  so  the  Philadelphia  North 
American's  correspondent  reported, 

"some  one  gave  'three  cheers  for  Col.  Sumner,'  which  was  re 
sponded  to.  Then  there  were  three  hearty  cheers  for  John  C.  Fre 
mont,  three  cheers  for  the  Constitution  and  State  Legislature,  and 
just  as  the  dragoons  got  the  word  of  command,  'march,'  three 
groans  were  given  for  Franklin  Pierce,  and  the  retreating  squadron 
of  dragoons  moved  off  amid  the  deep  groaning  for  the  President." 

During  all  these  exciting  Topeka  happenings,  John  Brown 
was  not  far  away.  He  had  remained  in  hiding  on  Ottawa 
Creek,  near  Palmyra,  throughout  June,  awaiting  the  recovery 
of  his  sick  and  wounded  sons,  and  gradually  recruiting  his 
band.61  Henry  Thompson,  in  addition  to  his  wound,  suffered 
from  bilious  fever,  and  Owen  Brown  was  also  a  fever  victim. 
The  invalid's  chief  nurse  was  Lucius  Mills,  a  cousin,  and  John 
Brown  looked  in  upon  them  from  time  to  time,  and  aided  when 
the  country  was  clear  of  Border  Ruffians  and  troops.  Food 
they  gathered  where  possible,  the  Carpenters,  Ottawa  Jones 
and  other  neighbors  helping.  Not  until  the  beginning  of  July 
did  John  Brown  terminate  this  life  in  the  bush  and  again 
become  active.  On  July  2  he  boldly  entered  Lawrence  and 
called  upon  the  Tribune's  correspondent,  William  A.  Phil 
lips.  To  him  Brown  stated  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Topeka 
with  his  followers,  to  be  on  hand  at  whatever  crisis  might 
arise  at  the  opening  of  the  Legislature.  "He  was  not  in  the 
habit,"  Colonel  Phillips  records,  "of  subjecting  himself  to  the 
orders  of  anybody.  He  intended  to  aid  the  general  result,  but 
to  do  it  in  his  own  way."  That  evening  Phillips  started  with 
John  Brown's  company,  toward  Topeka.  They  camped  in  the 
open,  a  mile  southwest  of  Big  Springs.  At  two  o'clock  A.  M. 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        221 

on  the  3d,  they  resumed  the  march,  straight  across  country, 
regardless  of  streams  and  rough  going.  At  sunrise  they  reached 
the  Shunga-nung,  heard  Colonel  Sumner's  camp  bugles,  and 
John  Brown  halted  in  the  timber  by  the  creek,  one  of  the  men 
going  with  Phillips  into  town  to  bring  back  word  when  the 
company  should  be  needed.  "He  [Brown]  sent  messages  to 
one  or  two  of  the  gentlemen  in  town,  and,  as  he  wrung  my 
hand  at  parting,  urged  that  we  should  have  the  Legislature 
meet  and  resist  all  who  should  interfere  with  it,  and  fight,  if 
necessary,  even  the  United  States  troops." 

Colonel  Phillips  has  left,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  De 
cember,  1879,  a  charming  picture  of  that  night  ride  and  the 
conversation  he  had  with  Brown  as  they  lay  "bivouacking  in 
the  open  beneath  the  stars:" 

"He  seemed  to  be  as  little  disposed  to  sleep  as  I  was,  and  we 
talked;  or  rather  he  did,  for  I  said  little.  I  found  that  he  was  a 
thorough  astronomer;  he  pointed  out  the  different  constellations 
and  their  movements.  '  Now,'  he  said,  ' it  is  midnight,'  as  he  pointed 
to  the  finger  marks  of  his  great  clock  in  the  sky.  The  whispering  of 
the  wind  on  the  prairie  was  full  of  voices  to  him,  and  the  stars  as 
they  shone  in  the  firmament  of  God  seemed  to  inspire  him.  'How 
admirable  is  the  symmetry  of  the  heavens;  how  grand  and  beau 
tiful!  Everything  moves  in  sublime  harmony  in  the  government 
of  God.  Not  so  with  us  poor  creatures.  If  one  star  is  more  brilliant 
than  others,  it  is  continually  shooting  in  some  erratic  way  into 
space.' 

"He  criticized  both  parties  in  Kansas.  Of  the  proslavery  men 
he  said  that  slavery  besotted  everything,  and  made  men  more  brutal 
and  coarse;  nor  did  the  Free-State  men  escape  his  sharp  censure. 
He  said  that  we  had  many  noble  and  true  men,  but  too  many 
broken-down  politicians  from  the  older  States,  who  would  rather 
pass  resolutions  than  act,  and  who  criticized  all  who  did  real  work. 
A  professional  politician,  he  went  on,  you  never  could  trust;  for 
even  if  he  had  convictions,  he  was  always  ready  to  sacrifice  his 
principles  for  his  advantage.  One  of  the  most  interesting  things 
in  his  conversation  that  night,  and  one  that  marked  him  as  a  theo 
rist,  was  his  treatment  of  our  forms  of  social  and  political  life.  He 
thought  society  ought  to  be  organized  on  a  less  selfish  basis;  for 
while  material  interests  gained  something  by  the  deification  of  pure 
selfishness,  men  and  women  lost  much  by  it.  He  said  that  all  great 
reforms,  like  the  Christian  religion,  were  based  on  broad,  generous, 
self-sacrificing  principles.  He  condemned  the  sale  of  land  as  a  chat 
tel,  and  thought  that  there  was  an  infinite  number  of  wrongs  to  right 
before  society  would  be  what  it  should  be,  but  that  in  our  country 


222  JOHN  BROWN 

slavery  was  the  'sum  of  all  villainies,'  and  its  abolition  the  first 
essential  work.  If  the  American  people  did  not  take  courage  and 
end  it  speedily,  human  freedom  and  republican  liberty  would  soon 
be  empty  names  in  these  United  States." 

How  long  John  Brown  remained  at  the  Willets  farm  near 
Topeka,  to  which  he  now  proceeded,  and  where  he  spent  the 
next  two  or  three  weeks,  is  not  known.  He  neither  entered 
Topeka  on  the  fateful  July  4,  nor  immediately  thereafter.  It 
is  probable  that  he  returned  promptly  to  the  neighborhood  of 
his  sick  sons,  more  than  ever  disgusted  with  Free  State  leaders 
and  their  inability  to  adopt  his  view  that  the  way  to  fight  was 
to  "press  to  close  quarters."62  On  July  26,  John  Brown,  Jr., 
wrote  from  his  Leaven  worth  prison  to  his  father : 

"Am  very  glad  that  you  have  started  as  all  things  considered  I 
am  convinced  you  can  be  of  more  use  where  you  contemplate  going 
than  here.  My  anxiety  for  your  safe  journey  is  very  great.  Hope 
that  I  shall  yet  see  you  all  again.  Where  I  shall  go,  if  I  get  through 
this  is  more  than  I  can  tell,  of  one  thing  I  feel  sure  now,  and  that 
is  that  I  shall  leave  Kansas.  I  must  get  away  from  exciting  scenes 
to  some  secluded  region,  or  my  life  will  be  a  failure.  .  .  .  The  treat 
ment  I  have  received  from  the  Free  State  party  has  wearied  me  of 
any  further  desire  to  cooperate  with  them.  They,  as  a  party,  are 
guided  by  no  principle  but  selfishness,  and  are  withal  most  arrant 
cowards  —  they  deserve  their  fate.  .  .  ,"63 

Four  days  later,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  wrote  to  Jason  Brown 
that  his  father  and  his  party  were  at  Topeka  "a  few  days  ago 
on  their  way  to  the  States.  They  were  supplied  at  Topeka  with 
provisions  for  the  trip  and  by  this  time  I  hope  they  have  passed 
without  the  limits  of  the  Territory."64  The  party  comprised 
Owen,  Oliver,  Frederick  and  Salmon  Brown,  and  their  father, 
Henry  Thompson,  and  Lucius  Mills,  for  whom  John  Brown 
had  little  regard  because  he  had  no  desire  to  fight  and  was  con 
tent  to  play  the  nurse  and  doctor.  Salmon  Brown  states  that 
they  left  because  Lucius  Mills  insisted  on  the  invalids'  being 
moved,  and  because  they  were  a  drag  on  the  fighting  men.  In 
their  hot,  primitive  quarters,  in  which  the  flies  were  a  scourge, 
Owen  had  been  reduced  "almost  to  a  skeleton,"  and  Henry 
Thompson  was  not  much  better  off,  while  Salmon  himself  was 
still  a  cripple.  Henry  Thompson  affirms  that  he,  Oliver,  Owen 
and  Salmon  had  had  enough  of  Kansas.  They  did  not  wish  to 


CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK        223 

fight  any  more.  They  felt  that  they  had  suffered  enough,  that 
the  service  they  had  been  called  upon  to  perform  at  Potta- 
watomie  squared  them  with  Duty.  They  were,  they  thought, 
entitled  to  leave  further  work  to  other  hands.  They  were  sick 
of  fighting  and  trouble.  The  burden  of  Pottawatomie  did  not, 
however,  weigh  upon  Salmon ;  it  was  as  an  invalided  soldier 
that  he  consented  to  leave.  Jason  Brown  stayed  at  Osawatomie 
with  his  wife.  John  Brown  himself  never  expressed  an  opinion 
as  to  his  sons'  resolution  or  their  leaving  Kansas. 

A  heretofore  unrelated  incident  of  this  journey  is  now  set 
forth  by  Salmon  Brown.  Oliver  Brown,  a  great,  stout,  strap 
ping  fellow,  was  forbidden  by  his  father  to  give  to  Lucius  Mills 
a  fine  revolver.  Says  Salmon  Brown: 

"Oliver  wanted  to  make  him  a  present  of  a  revolver  that  he  [Oli 
ver]  had  captured  at  Black  Jack.  Father  objected;  forbade  Oliver 
to  give  Mills  the  pistol,  saying  that  Mills  would  never  use  it.  Oliver 
persisting,  Father  set  out  to  take  the  pistol  away  from  him  by  force. 
In  the  scuffle  that  ensued,  I,  alarmed  lest  the  weapon  might  be 
accidentally  discharged,  took  it  out  of  Oliver's  belt,  saying:  ' Now 
you  fellows  fight  it  out!'  It  looked  foolish,  to  me.  The  pistol  was 
Oliver's  pistol.  And  the  match  was  not  an  equal  one.  Father  had 
been  a  strong  man  in  his  day,  but  his  prime  was  past.  Oliver  was 
a  splendid  wrestler.  Up  in  North  Elba,  he  had  thrown  thirty  lum 
bermen  one  day,  one  after  the  other,  in  a  big  'wrastle.'  Father  was 
like  a  child  in  his  hands.  And  Oliver  was  determined.  He  grabbed 
Father  by  the  arms  and  jammed  him  against  the  wagon.  'Let  go 
of  me!'  said  Father.  'Not  till  you  agree  to  behave  yourself,'  said 
Oliver.  And  Father  had  to  let  him  have  his  way."65 

On  August  3  and  4,  John  Brown  and  those  with  him  were 
overtaken  by  a  party  of  Free  State  men  who  were  marching 
north  to  the  Nebraska  line,  to  meet  James  H.  Lane's  Free 
State  caravan  and  to  protect  it  from  the  merciless  Kickapoo 
Rangers,  the  murderers  of  Captain  R.  P.  Brown.  One  of  these 
volunteer  guards,  Samuel  J.  Reader,  still  a  resident  of  Kansas, 
has  transcribed  from  his  journal  the  following  impressions  of 
his  meeting  with  John  Brown: 68 

"Between  three  and  four  o'clock  we  formed  in  marching  column, 
and  started  forward  at  a  swinging  pace.  We  were  all  well  rested, 
and  a  little  tired  of  staying  in  camp.  We  had  been  on  the  road 
perhaps  an  hour  or  more  when  someone  in  front  shouted,  'There 
he  is!'  Sure  enough,  it  was  Brown.  Just  ahead  of  us  we  saw  the 


224  JOHN  BROWN 

dingy  old  wagon-cover,  and  the  two  men,  and  the  oxen,  plodding 
slowly  onward.  Our  step  was  increased  to  'quick  time;'  and  as  we 
passed  the  old  man,  on  either  side  of  the  road,  we  rent  the  air  with 
cheers.  If  John  Brown  ever  delighted  in  the  praises  of  men,  his 
pleasure  must  have  been  gratified,  as  he  walked  along,  enveloped 
in  our  shouting  column.  But  I  fear  he  looked  upon  such  things  as 
vainglorious,  for  if  he  responded  by  word  or  act,  I  failed  to  hear 
it  or  see  it.  In  passing  I  looked  at  him  closely.  He  was  rather  tall, 
and  lean,  with  a  tanned,  weather-beaten  aspect  in  general.  He 
looked  like  a  rough,  hard-working  old  farmer;  and  I  had  known  sev 
eral  such  who  pretty  closely  resembled  Brown  in  many  respects. 
He  appeared  to  be  unarmed ;  but  very  likely  had  shooting  irons 
inside  the  wagon.  His  face  was  shaven,  and  he  wore  a  cotton  shirt, 
partly  covered  by  a  vest.  His  hat  was  well  worn,  and  his  general 
appearance,  dilapidated,  dusty  and  soiled.  He  turned  from  his  ox 
team  and  glanced  at  our  party  from  time  to  time  as  we  were  pass 
ing  him.  No  doubt  it  was  a  pleasing  sight  to  him  to  see  men  in 
armed  opposition  to  the  Slave  Power." 

Mr.  Reader,  on  this  expedition,  on  August  7,  was  an  eye 
witness  of  the  first  meeting  between  John  Brown  and  a 
remarkable  man  who  subsequently  became  one  of  Brown's 
most  trusted  lieutenants,  Aaron  Dwight  Stevens,  who  at  that 
time  went  by  the  name  of  Captain  Whipple,  for  the  good  rea 
son  that  he  had  escaped  from  the  military  prison  at  Fort 
Leavenworth  while  serving  a  three  years'  sentence  for  taking 
part  in  a  soldiers'  mutiny  at  Don  Fernandez  de  Taos,  New 
Mexico,  and  resisting  the  authority  of  an  officer  of  his  regi 
ment,  Major  G.  A.  H.  Blake,  of  the  First  Dragoons.67* 

John  Brown  himself  did  not  set  foot  in  Iowa,  but  turned 
back  at  Nebraska  City,  on  the  Nebraska  boundary,  his  invalids 
then  being  quite  safe.68  "Frederick  turned  and  went  back 
with  his  father,"  Henry  Thompson  testifies.  "Frederick  felt 
that  Pottawatomie  bound  him  to  Kansas.  He  did  not  wish 
to  leave.  He  felt  that  a  great  crime  had  been  committed,  and 
that  he  should  go  back  into  Kansas  and  live  it  out."  It  was 
a  decision  that  cost  him  his  life. 

*  A  myth  that  this  officer  was  Captain  James  Longstreet,  later  the  famous 
Confederate  Lieutenant-General,  persists  in  lives  of  Brown  and  sketches  of  A.  D. 
Stevens.  Captain  Longstreet,  at  the  time  of  Stevens's  trial,  was  on  duty  with  his 
regiment,  the  Eighth  Infantry,  in  Texas,  and  does  not  figure  in  the  court-martial 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD 

AT  Nebraska  City,  John  Brown  found  a  notable  caravan. 
Under  the  erratic  James  Henry  Lane,  there  had  arrived  at  that 
point  a  body  of  several  hundred  Free  State  emigrants,  many 
of  whom  had  attempted  to  reach  Kansas  by  the  usual  route  of 
the  Missouri  River,  only  to  learn  that  the  chivalric  Missouri- 
ans  had  barred  that  means  of  entrance.  As  early  as  June  20, 
1856,  a  party  of  seventy-five  men  from  Chicago,  understood 
to  be  the  vanguard  of  the  "army  of  the  North"  which  Lane 
had  been  raising  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere,  was  forced  to  give 
up  its  arms  on  the  steamer  Star  of  the  West,  at  Lecompton, 
Missouri,  by  a  mob  of  Missourians  headed  by  Colonel  Joseph 
Shelby,  later  a  prominent  Confederate  brigadier.  At  Kansas 
City,  General  Atchison,  with  another  armed  force,  compelled 
the  Northerners  to  stay  on  their  boat  and  return  to  Illi 
nois,  an  achievement  about  which  the  Border  Ruffian  press 
boasted  loudly  and  long. *  Thereafter  parties  of  Northerners, 
on  the  steamers  Sultan  and  Arabia  and  other  river-craft, 
were  similarly  driven  back,  some  even  being  robbed  of  their 
possessions.2  By  the  4th  of  July,  the  blockade  of  the  river  was 
complete ;  thereafter  the  Free  State  reinforcements  were  com 
pelled  to  take  the  tedious  and  expensive  overland  trip  from 
Iowa  City,  which  was  in  railroad  communication  with  Chi 
cago,  to  Nebraska  City,  and  thence  southward  through  Ne 
braska  to  Kansas.  This  route  was  opened  by  Lane,  whose 
party  finally  comprised  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  well- 
armed  single  men,  and  is  said  by  most  writers  to  have  num 
bered,  all  told,  six  hundred  men,  women  and  children  when  he 
reached  the  Kansas  line.  There  General  Lane  found  it  desir 
able  to  assume  the  name  of  "General  Joe  Cook."  While  in  the 
East,  General  Lane  had  made  a  sensation  by  a  most  eloquent 
speech  in  behalf  of  Kansas,  delivered  at  Chicago  on  the  3 1st 
of  May,  i856.3  He  made  full  use  of  the  sacking  of  Lawrence 
and  of  the  pro-slavery  outrages  in  the  Territory,  and  it  was  in 


226  JOHN  BROWN 

large  part  to  his  eloquence  that  much  of  the  heavy  emigra 
tion  to  Kansas  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1856  was  due.  How 
great  his  oratorical  powers  were  may  be  seen  from  a  letter 
of  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  of  September  18,  1856, 
now  preserved  in  the  collections  of  the  Kansas  Historical  So 
ciety  : 

"Last  night  he  [Lane]  spoke  in  a  school  house;  never  did  I  hear 
such  a  speech ;  every  sentence  like  a  pistol  bullet ;  such  delicacy  and 
lightness  of  touch ;  such  natural  art ;  such  perfect  adaptation ;  not 
a  word,  not  a  gesture,  could  have  been  altered;  he  had  every  nerve 
in  his  audience  at  the  end  of  his  muscles;  not  a  man  in  the  United 
States  could  have  done  it ;  and  the  perfect  ease  of  it  all,  not  a  glimpse 
of  premeditation  or  effort;  and  yet  he  has  slept  in  his  boots  every 
night  but  two  for  five  weeks." 

The  opening  of  the  presidential  campaign  between  Fremont 
and  Buchanan,  as  well  as  the  events  in  the  Territory,  kept 
Kansas  in  the  forefront  of  national  politics.  The  first  Repub 
lican  National  Convention  resolved,  on  June  17,  that  "  Kansas 
should  be  immediately  admitted  as  a  state  of  the  Union 
with  her  present  free  constitution."  4  The  majority  of  the 
Howard  Committee  submitted  its  report  on  July  I,  with  much 
resultant  Congressional  discussion  of  the  Kansas  situation,  and 
Oliver,  the  minority  of  the  committee,  followed  suit  on  July  1 1 
with  his  report  containing  the  evidence  in  regard  to  the  Pot- 
tawatomie  massacre.  Even  then,  curiously  enough,  the  Potta- 
watomie  affair  did  not  in  any  degree  injure  the  Free  State 
cause  in  the  North.5  Oliver  himself  used  it  in  a  speech  on 
July  3 1,6  and  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  also  made  a  passing  refer 
ence  to  it; 7  but  no  one  else  in  Congress.  The  Democrats  con 
tinued  to  base  most  of  their  criticisms  upon  the  general  policy 
of  the  Free  State  settlers  in  taking  Sharp's  rifles  with  them 
to  Kansas.  The  Elections  Committee  of  the  House  reported 
against  the  admission  of  Whitfield  as  a  delegate  and  in  favor 
of  Reeder;  the  House  on  August  I  voted  against  Whitfield 
by  no  to  92,  and  against  Reeder  by  113  to  88,  and  thus 
neither  was  given  a  seat.8  There  were  various  attempts  to 
legislate  during  the  summer.  On  June  25,  Congressman  Grow, 
of  Pennsylvania,  presented  a  bill  in  the  House  for  the  admis 
sion  of  Kansas  under  the  Tokepa  Constitution,  and  the  House 
passed  it  by  99  to  97  on  the  day  before  Colonel  Sumner  dis- 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  227 

persed  the  Topeka  Legislature.9  On  July  2  the  Senate  had 
passed  by  33  to  12  votes  the  Toombs  bill,  which  had  been 
reported  by  Senator  Douglas  from  the  Committee  on  Terri 
tories,  in  a  form  which  betrayed  clearly  the  alarm  of  the  slave- 
power  over  the  injury  done  its  cause  by  the  excesses  of  its 
agents  in  Kansas.  The  Toombs  bill  provided  for  a  census  of 
all  white  males  over  twenty-one  years  of  age,  bona  fide  resi 
dents  of  the  Territory.  Those  who  were  thus  counted  were  to 
be  allowed  to  vote  on  November  i  for  delegates  to  a  Constitu 
tional  convention,  and  due  precautions  were  taken  in  the  bill 
to  guard  against  fraud,  intimidation  and  election  irregularities. 

But  neither  house  of  Congress  would  agree  to  the  other's 
bills,  and  the  final  adjournment  came  without  any  definite 
legislation  for  the  relief  of  Kansas.  The  House  endeavored  to 
embarrass  the  President  by  attaching  to  two  appropriation 
bills  riders  in  the  interest  of  the  Free  State  settlers.  One  of 
these  was  soon  dropped,  but  the  other,  attached  to  the  Army 
Appropriation  bill  by  John  Sherman,  practically  forbade  the 
President  to  use  the  troops  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining  the 
bogus  Kansas  Legislature.  As  a  result,  the  Army  Appro 
priation  bill  failed.  When  Congress  adjourned  on  August 
1 8,  a  special  session  was  called  by  the  President.  It  met  on 
August  21,  and  on  August  30  the  Army  Appropriation  bill  was 
passed  without  the  Kansas  amendment  by  a  majority  of 
three  votes.10 

More  important  for  Kansas,  during  this  period,  was  the 
organization  at  Buffalo  of  the  National  Kansas  Committee, 
with  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  of  New  York  city,  as  president,  in  the 
second  week  in  July.  In  the  six  months  of  its  existence  this 
National  Kansas  Committee  forwarded  two  thousand  emi 
grants  by  way  of  the  land  route  of  Iowa  and  Nebraska,  and 
received  more  than  eighty-five  thousand  dollars  in  cash, 
besides  gifts  of  clothing  aggregating  more  than  one  hundred 
and  ten  thousand  dollars.11  By  January  25,  1857,  the  condi 
tions  in  Kansas  had  so  improved,  from  the  Free  State  point 
of  view,  as  to  make  further  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Na 
tional  Committee  unnecessary.  This  record  of  its  Chicago 
headquarters  is,  of  course,  wholly  distinct  from  the  even  more 
remarkable  record  of  the  New  England  Emigration  Society 
and  the  Massachusetts  State  Kansas  Committee. 


228  JOHN  BROWN 

John  Brown  made  but  a  short  stay  at  Nebraska  City.  He 
took  leave  of  his  invalids,  obtained  horses  for  himself  and  his 
son,  and  joined  a  party  of  thirty  men  headed  by  Captain  Sam 
uel  Walker,  and  General  Lane,  upon  whose  shoulders  from 
now  on  rested  the  practical  direction  of  the  Free  State  cause 
in  Kansas,  until  the  release,  in  September,  of  the  leaders  in 
prison  at  Leavenworth.  As  Captain  Walker  had  received 
a  message  urging  him  to  return  to  Lawrence  at  once,  Lane 
decided  that  they  should  push  on  to  that  town,  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  distant,  as  fast  as  humanly  possible.  He  rode 
into  Lawrence  alone,  thirty  hours  later,  arriving  at  three  A.  M. 
of  the  morning  of  August  n,  all  of  his  companions  having 
dropped  by  the  wayside.12  Captain  Walker  rode  nearly  to 
Lawrence,  but  John  Brown  stopped  off  at  Topeka  with  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  to  his  credit. 

As  to  his  intercourse  with  John  Brown  during  their  two  or 
three  days'  journey  to  Nebraska  City  and  their  rapid  return, 
Captain  Walker,  one  of  the  stoutest  of  the  Free  State  fighters, 
has  left  an  interesting  record  in  the  shape  of  a  curiously  illit 
erate  letter  of  February  8,  1875,  addressed  to  Judge  Han- 
way,  of  Lane.13  In  this  epistle  Walker  declares  his  belief  that 
John  Brown  was  insane  during  the  summer  of  1856.  Brown 
would  always  go  off  and  camp  by  himself.  One  morning, 
when  Walker  went  to  wake  him,  he  was  asleep,  leaning  against 
a  tree,  with  his  rifle  across  his  knees.  "  I  put  my  hand  on  his 
shoulder;  that  moment  he  was  on  his  feet,  his  rifle  at  my 
breast.  I  pushed  the  muzzle  up  and  the  ball  grazed  my  shoul 
der.  Thereafter,  I  never  approached  Brown  when  he  was 
sleeping,  as  it  seemed  to  be  his  most  wakeful  time."  As  they 
were  riding  together  on  the  day  of  this  incident,  Walker  re 
ferred  to  the  Pottawatomie  murders  and  frankly  told  Brown 
that  he  would  not  have  them  on  his  conscience  for  the  world. 
Brown  admitted  that  he  was  in  charge  of  the  murder  party 
and  ordered  the  executions,  but  averred  that  he  had  not 
raised  his  hand  against  any  one  man.  It  was  on  this  occa 
sion,  Captain  Walker  states,  that  Brown  charged  that  the 
responsibility  of  the  crime  rested  upon  Robinson  and  Lane 
as  instigators,  as  already  related.*  Walker  also  says  that  to 
oblige  Brown  he  took  a  message  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  which 

*  See  page  184. 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  229 

the  father  promised  to  effect  his  son's  rescue  on  a  certain 
night;  and  that  John  Brown,  Jr.,  replied  that  he  wished  the 
senior  to  stay  away,  as  he  was  the  cause  of  the  son's  arrest. 
The  latter  did  not,  Walker  averred,  then  approve  of  his 
father's  acts,  and  wished  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  him  at 
that  time,  —  a  statement  absolutely  contradicted  by  the  son's 
letters  from  prison.* 

The  arrival  of  Lane  and  Brown  at  Lawrence,  to  which  place 
the  latter  soon  returned  from  Topeka,  despite  his  son's  ear 
nest  protest  that  he  should  not  expose  himself  on  any  account 
to  the  danger  of  arrest,  was  followed  by  aggressive  warfare 
on  the  part  of  Free  State  men.  On  August  5  the  Lawrence 
military  companies,  together  with  a  few  volunteers  from 
Osawatomie,  among  them  August  Bondi,  had  driven  out  the 
pro-slavery  settlement  at  New  Georgia,  on  the  Marais  des 
Cygnes,  not  far  from  Osawatomie.14  Word  of  their  coming 
had  preceded  them,  and  the  Southern  colony  of  from  sixty  to 
seventy-five  persons  fled  as  the  Free  State  men,  at  whose  head 
rumor  placed  the  dread  John  Brown,  approached.  The  vic 
tors  burned  the  block-house  and  such  of  the  abandoned  pro 
visions  as  they  could  not  carry  away.  To  them  the  settlement 
was  a  nuisance;  its  inhabitants  were  charged  with  stealing 
horses,  killing  cows,  injuring  fences  and  being  drunk  in  the 
streets  of  Osawatomie. 15  To  the  Southerners  this  was  a  wicked 
attack,  announcing  the  beginning  of  civil  war  upon  unarmed 
men  and  women,  whose  property  was  wantonly  destroyed 
or  stolen,  even  to  the  clothes  of  the  children.  To  the  arrival 
of  Lane's  army  the  outrage  was  attributed  in  a  bellicose 
proclamation  issued  at  Westport  on  August  16  by  Atchison 
and  B.  F.  Stringfellow. 16  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  if 
drunkenness  was  a  sin  in  Missourians,  it  did  not  prevent  the 
Captain,  Austin,  of  the  Osawatomie  company  from  com 
pletely  intoxicating  himself  on  the  road  to  this  bloodless 
battle.17 

"Old  Capt.  Brown  can  now  be  raised  from  every  prairie 
and  thicket,"  wrote  Jason  Brown  to  his  sister  Ruth  on  Au 
gust  13,  1856, 18  after  hearing  the  pro-slavery  story  that  his 

*  "You  and  those  with  you  have  done  nobly  and  bravely,"  wrote  the  son 
to  his  father  on  August  13,  1856, —  Original  letter  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John 
Brown,  Jr.  ..^ 


230  JOHN  BROWN 

father  was  in  command  at  New  Georgia.  Atchison  and  String- 
fellow  placed  John  Brown  at  the  head  of  the  Free  Soil  men 
in  every  skirmish  and  raid  of  this  month.19  The  New  York 
Times  s  correspondent  called  him  the  "terror  of  all  Mis 
souri"  and  the  "old  terrifier."  20  O.  C.  Brown,  of  Osawatomie, 
says,  "Old  John  Brown's  name  was  equal  to  an  army  with 
banners."  21  At  Paola,  seven  miles  from  Osawatomie,  a  pro- 
slavery  meeting  broke  up  in  the  greatest  haste  on  hearing 
that  John  Brown  was  coming  to  "take  out"  some  men;  and 
the  creek  over  which  the  invader  would  have  to  come  was 
heavily  guarded  all  night  by  the  frightened  citizens  of  Paola.22 
Mary  Grant  records  that  once,  when  a  large  party  of  Mis- 
sourians  was  returning  to  its  State,  the  rear  ranks  called  out, 
by  way  of  joke,  "John  Brown  is  coming!"  whereupon  the  van 
cut  the  mules  from  their  traces  and  rode  for  their  lives.23  It 
is  the  opinion  of  R.  G.  Elliott,  of  Lawrence,  that: 

"Brown  was  a  presence  in  Kansas  and  an  active  presence  all 
through  '56.  Yet  it  was  his  presence  more  than  his  activities,  that 
made  him  a  power,  —  the  idea  of  his  being.  He  was  a  ghostly  in 
fluence.  No  man  in  Kansas  was  more  respected.  Yet  after  Potta- 
watomie  he  moved  much  in  secret."24 

"War!  War!  !  War!  !  !  The  Bloody  Issue  Begun!  Up 
Sovereigns!  and  to  your  duty!  Patience  has  ceased  to  be  a 
virtue"  -these  were  the  headlines  of  the  Leaven  worth 
Journal's  extra  on  August  14,  in  which  it  described  the  next 
aggressive  movement  of  the  Free  State  forces,  the  second 
attack  upon  Franklin.25  Despite  the  lesson  taught  to  the 
Southerners  by  the  successful  raid  of  June  5,  they  persisted 
in  living  in  their  Franklin  homes.  The  original  motive  for 
this  new  raid  was  the  desire  of  Captain  Thomas  Bickerton's 
artillery  company  for  a  six-pounder  known  to  be  at  Franklin, 
which  had  been  originally  captured  at  Lawrence,  for  which 
town  it  had  been  purchased  by  Horace  Greeley,  Charles 
King,  David  Dudley  Field  and  other  prominent  New  York 
ers.26  Part  of  Captain  Bickerton's  report  of  the  operations  of 
August  12  is  as  follows: 27 

"The  Franklin  affair  was  kept  secret  from  the  people.  They 
thought  when  they  saw  us  going  that  we  were  going  out  by  the 
church  to  drill  by  moonlight.  When  we  got  up  near  to  Franklin  who 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  231 

should  come  along  but  this  'Jo  Cook,'  on  horseback,  and  make 
himself  known  to  the  boys.  They  were  very  much  elated  with  see 
ing  Lane.  .  .  .  After  the  taking  of  the  place,  our  men,  I  am  ashamed 
to  say,  were  so  crazy  over  the  way,  in  gutting  Crane's  store,  that  I 
could  hardly  get  any  of  them  to  help  me  in  taking  the  cannon  out 
of  the  blockhouse.  .  .  .  The  postoffice  was  not  disturbed.  ...  I 
went  in  only  to  see  if  any  arms  or  powder  were  there.  Found  no 
cartridges  and  only  five  balls.  Got  the  cannon  on  the  carriage  and 
brought  it  to  Lawrence.  ...  I  then  went  to  work  and  made  a 
pattern  for  a  ball;  as  there  was  no  lead  in  the  place,  and  we  had  no 
way  of  making  them  of  iron,  we  had  to  take  [G.  W.]  Brown's  type 
of  the  Herald  of  Freedom." 

The  firing  lasted,  as  usual,  for  several  hours,  and  the  town 
was  not  surrendered  until  a  wagon  of  burning  hay  was  backed 
up  to  the  block-house.  The  Free  State  loss  was  one  killed 
and  six  wounded,  while  three  pro-slavery  men  were  severely 
and  one  mortally  wounded.  The  sack  of  Osawatomie  was 
avenged  now  by  the  securing  of  a  rare  amount  of  plunder, 
composed  of  provisions,  guns  and  ammunition.28  Major 
Buford,  of  the  Georgia  colonizers,  complained  in  a  letter  to 
the  Mobile  Tribune  that: 

"  Our  money,  books,  papers,  clothing,  surveying  instruments,  and 
many  precious  memorials  of  kindred  and  friends  far  away,  were  all 
consumed  by  the  incendiary  villains  who  hold  the  sway.  .  .  .  We 
are  now  destitute  of  everything  except  our  muskets  and  an  unyield 
ing  determination  to  be  avenged.  .  .  .  Southerners  come  and  help 
us.  Bring  each  of  you  a  double  barrel  gun,  a  brace  of  Colt's  repeat 
ers,  and  a  trusty  knife."  2a 

The  news  of  the  atrocious  murder  of  Major  Hoyt  on  the 
same  day  undoubtedly  inflamed  the  Franklin  raiders.  It  made 
the  Free  State  men  everywhere  determined  to  drive  out  the  pro- 
slavery  camps.  They  assailed,  on  August  15,  "Fort"  Saun- 
ders,  a  strong  log-house  on  Washington  Creek,  about  twelve 
miles  southwest  of  Lawrence.  After  the  customary  fusillade, 
the  pro-slavery  men  retreated  without  bloodshed  on  either 
side.30  Next  on  the  list  was  "Fort"  Titus,  the  stronghold  of 
Colonel  H.  T.  Titus,  an  active  pro-slavery  leader.  It  was  in 
order  to  assault  Titus's  fort  that  Captain  Bickerton's  men  de 
sired  to  recapture  the  Franklin  cannon.  There  was  real  fight 
ing  at  Fort  Titus,  which  Captain  Samuel  Walker,  Captain 
Joel  Grover  and  a  Captain  Shombre  attacked  at  sunrise  of 


232  JOHN  BROWN 

August  1 6  with  fifty  determined  men.*  Captain  Shombre  was 
killed  and  nine  out  of  ten  men  with  him  wounded  in  a  rush  on 
the  block-house.31  In  a  short  time  eighteen  out  of  the  remain 
ing  forty  attackers  were  wounded,  including  Captain  Walker. 
After  several  hours  of  fighting,  Free  State  reinforcements 
appeared,  including  Captain  Bickerton  with  the  six-pounder 
and  its  slugs  made  of  molten  type.  It  was  run  to  within  three 
hundred  yards  of  the  fort  and  fired  nine  or  ten  times.  At  its 
first  shot  its  cannoneer  cried,  "This  is  the  second  edition 
of  the  Herald  of  Freedom  1 "  As  Titus  still  showed  no  white 
flag,  a  load  of  hay  was  again  resorted  to,  and  with  the  same 
success  as  at  Franklin.  As  the  wagon  was  backed  up  to  the 
log- fort,  and  before  the  match  was  applied,  the  party  sur 
rendered.  Colonel  Titus  was  discovered  badly  wounded  by 
a  shot  fired  by  Luke  F.  Parsons,  later  a  devoted  follower  of 
John  Brown.32  Walker  captured  thirteen  horses,  four  hundred 
guns,  a  large  number  of  knives  and  pistols,  a  "fair  stock  of 
provisions  "  and  thirty-four  prisoners,  six  of  whom  were  badly 
wounded.  One  dead  man  was  found  in  the  block-house  before 
it  was  burned  to  the  ground.  A  Free  State  man  stole  a  satchel 
containing  fifteen  thousand  dollars  belonging  to  Titus,  but, 
says  Walker,  "it  did  him  little  good.  He  died  a  miserable 
death  in  the  far  West."  Everything  not  burned  was  appro 
priated  by  the  Free  State  men.  Colonel  Titus  himself  nar 
rowly  escaped  with  his  life.  But  for  Captain  Walker  he  would 
have  been  summarily  killed  on  being  taken,  and  but  for 
that  same  brave,  vigorous  character  he  would  have  been 
executed  at  Lawrence,  to  which  place  the  prisoners  were  at 
once  removed. 

The  testimony  as  to  whether  John  Brown  was  at  Saunders 
and  Titus  is  conflicting.  He  himself  left  no  statement  bearing 
upon  it,  and  Luke  Parsons,  James  Blood,  O.  E.  Leonard  and 
others  are  positive  that  he  was  not  at  either  place.  The  weight 
of  evidence  would  seem  to  be  on  that  side.  John  Brown,  after 
the  Wakarusa  "  war,"  left  Lawrence,  saying,  "  I  offered  to  help 
you  and  you  would  not  listen.  I  will  still  work  with  you,  but 
under  no  commander  but  old  John  Brown."33  Thereafter  his 

*  "Within  sight  and  hearing  of  the  United  States  camp,  where  were  guarded 
the  treason  prisoners."  The  fight  was  witnessed  by  Major  Sedgwick's  troopers, 
who  failed,  however,  to  interfere.  —  C.  Robinson,  The  Kansas  Conflict,  p.  307. 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  233 

disposition  was  to  fight  only  when  he  was  in  sole  command. 
Moreover,  his  remaining  at  Lawrence  during  those  crowded 
days  after  his  and  Lane's  arrival  there  might  easily  be  ex 
plained  by  his  desire  to  be  near  his  imprisoned  son,  whose 
rescue,  if  possible  and  advisable,  was  perhaps  the  strongest 
motive  for  his  return  to  Kansas  from  Nebraska  City.34  But 
that  John  Brown  was  at  Lawrence  when  Walker  arrived 
with  his  prisoners  admits  of  no  doubt.  Again  his  voice  was 
raised  for  the  extreme  penalty;  again  he  asked  a  sacrifice  of 
blood.  As  Captain  Walker  portrays  it: 

"At  a  little  way  out  of  Lawrence  I  met  a  delegation  sent  by  the 
committee  of  safety  with  an  order  for  the  immediate  delivery  of 
Titus  into  their  hands.  Knowing  the  character  of  the  men  I  re 
fused  to  give  him  up.  Our  arrival  at  Lawrence  created  intense  ex 
citement.  The  citizens  swarmed  around  us,  clamoring  for  the  blood 
of  our  prisoner.  The  committee  of  safety  held  a  meeting  and  de 
cided  that  Titus  should  be  hanged,  John  Brown  and  other  distin 
guished  men  urging  the  measure  strongly.  At  four  o'clock  in  the 
evening  I  went  before  the  committee,  and  said  that  Titus  had  sur 
rendered  to  me;  that  I  had  promised  him  his  life,  and  that  I  would 
defend  it  with  my  own.  I  then  left  the  room.  Babcock  followed 
me  out  and  asked  me  if  I  was  fully  determined.  Being  assured  that 
I  was,  he  went  back,  and  the  committee  by  a  new  vote  decided 
to  postpone  the  hanging  indefinitely.  I  was  sure  of  the  support 
of  some  300  good  men,  and  among  them  Captain  Tucker,  Captain 
Harvey,  and  Captain  Stulz.  Getting  this  determined  band  into  line, 
I  approached  the  house  where  Titus  was  confined  and  entered.  Just 
as  I  opened  the  door  I  heard  pistol  shots  in  Titus 's  room,  and  rush 
ing  in  I  found  a  desperado  named  '  Buckskin '  firing  over  the  guard's 
shoulders  at  the  wounded  man  as  he  lay  on  his  cot.  It  took  but  one 
blow  from  my  heavy  dragoon  pistol  to  send  the  villain  heels-over 
head  to  the  bottom  of  the  stairs.  Captain  Brown  and  Doctor  Avery 
were  outside  haranguing  the  mob  to  hang  Titus  despite  my  objec 
tions.  They  said  I  had  resisted  the  committee  of  safety,  and  was 
myself,  therefore,  a  public  enemy.  The  crowd  was  terribly  excited, 
but  the  sight  of  my  300  solid  bayonets  held  them  in  check." 

Colonel  Titus  was  finally  saved  by  Governor  Shannon.  In 
his  official  Executive  Minutes  of  August  18,  Governor  Shan 
non  has  thus  recorded  the  final  act  of  his  governorship : 35 

"Governor  Shannon  this  day  resigned  the  office  of  Governor  of 
the  Territory  of  Kansas,  and  forwarded  his  resignation  by  mail  to 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  having  previously  visited  the 
town  of  Lawrence,  at  the  imminent  hazard  of  his  life,  and  effected 


234  JOHN  BROWN 

the  release  of  Col.  H.  T.  Titus  and  others,  who  had  been  forcibly 
taken  there  by  the  armed  organization  of  outlaws  whose  headquar 
ters  are  at  that  place,  and  who  had  on  the  day  before  battered 
down  with  artillery  the  house  of  said  Col.  Titus,  robbed  his  premises 
of  everything  valuable,  and  then  burned  his  house  to  the  ground, 
killing  one  of  his  companions,  and  taking  the  remainder,  with  Col. 
Titus  and  their  plunder,  to  their  fortified  headquarters  —  Lawrence 
—  at  which  place  said  Titus  was  put  on  trial  for  his  life,  and  sen 
tenced  to  die;  which  sentence  would  doubtless  have  been  executed, 
but  for  the  timely  interposition  of  Governor  Shannon,  who,  in 
consideration  of  the  release  of  said  Titus  and  his  companions,  con 
sented  to  release  five  men  held  in  custody  in  Lecompton  under  legal 
process,  charged  with  being  engaged  in  the  late  midnight  attack 
and  sacking  of  the  town  of  Franklin  —  the  outlaws  having  per 
emptorily  refused  to  release  said  Titus  and  others,  upon  his  demand 
as  the  executive  officer  of  the  Territory." 

In  the  course  of  his  farewell  speech  to  the  citizens  of  Law 
rence,  Governor  Shannon  promised  to  deliver  over  to  Major 
Sedgwick  the  cannon  taken  from  Lawrence  on  the  2ist  of 
May,  and  added:  "Fellow-citizens  of  Lawrence,  before  leaving 
you  I  desire  to  express  my  earnest  desire  for  your  health,  hap 
piness  and  prosperity.  Farewell."  36  Governor  Shannon  in 
later  years  returned  to  Lawrence  and  settled  there,  winning 
the  regard  and  respect  of  his  neighbors  and  former  opponents. 
Even  his  old  enemy,  Dr.  Charles  Robinson,  whose  opinions 
about  his  former  associates  were  subject  to  radical  changes 
with  the  lapse  of  years,  paid  him  a  high  tribute  after  his  death. 
But  his  record  as  Governor  was  not  one  in  which  he  could 
righteously  take  pride.37  His  resignation  was  not  accepted 
by  President  Pierce  and  he  was  removed  from  his  office,38  his 
successor  being  John  W.  Geary,  who  arrived  in  the  Territory 
on  September  9,  and  remained  only  six  months  in  this  posi 
tion,  resigning  on  March  20,  1857. 

Besides  the  larger  raids  already  recounted,  August  was  a 
month  of  minor  warfare.  Thus  on  August  13  the  home  of  the 
Rev.  Martin  White  was  raided  by  Free  State  men,  among 
them  James  H.  Holmes,  and  ten  pro-slavery  horses  were 
weaned  from  their  allegiance  to  a  wicked  and  failing  cause. 
White,  a,  prejudiced  witness,  asserted  that  the  horses  were 
laden  with  plunder,  but  on  this  point  the  memories  of  Holmes 
and  Bondi,  both  participants,  failed  them.39  A  reprisal  was 
reported  by  the  Tribune  on  August  28,  in  these  words: 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  235 

"On  the  22nd  the  Quaker  Mission,  on  the  road  from  Westport 
to  Lawrence,  was  attacked  by  an  armed  band  of  Georgians  who 
plundered  the  place,  taking  all  the  horses  they  could  find,  and  com 
mitting  all  manner  of  wanton  outrages  upon  persons  and  property. 
.  .  .  The  inoffensive  people  were  compelled  to  flee  for  their  lives, 
their  property  all  stolen  or  destroyed."  : 

The  loss  of  horses  seemed  especially  grievous  to  the  Trib 
une's  Lawrence  correspondent,  who  doubtless  had  not  heard 
of  the  exploit  at  Martin  White's. 

John  Brown's  brief  period  of  inactivity  in  Lawrence  came 
to  an  end  immediately  after  the  exchange  of  prisoners  with 
Shannon.*  According  to  Bondi,  he  arrived  in  Osawatomie,  for 
the  first  time  after  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  about  August 
20,  "with  a  spick  and  span  four-mule  team,  the  wagon  loaded 
with  provisions;  besides,  he  was  well  supplied  with  money  and 
all  contributed  by  the  Northern  friends  of  the  Free  State 
Kansas,  men  like  Thaddeus  Hyatt."  Brown's  avowed  object 
was  to  give  the  pro-slavery  settlements  of  Linn  and  Bour 
bon  counties  "a  taste  of  the  treatment  which  their  Missouri 
friends  would  not  cease  to  extend  to  the  Free  State  settle 
ments  of  the  Marais  des  Cygnes  and  Pottawatomie,"  —  a 
statement  by  Bondi  wrhich  again  refutes  the  allegation  that 
the  Pottawatomie  murders  freed  that  vicinity  from  interfer 
ence  by  the  Border  Ruffians. 

Naturally,  as  a  good  general,  John  Brown's  first  concern 
was  for  the  mounts  of  his  men.  Bondi  avers  that  some  of 
Brown's  men  received  prompt  orders  to  capture  all  of  "Dutch 
Henry"  Sherman's  horses.  He  himself  obtained,  when  these 
orders  were  executed,  "a  four  year  old  fine  bay  horse  for  my 
mount,"  and  "old  John  Brown  rode  a  fine  blooded  bay," 
while  "Dutch  Henry"  fell  back,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  upon 
Shanks'  mare,  and,  between  meditations  upon  his  just  pun 
ishment  for  sympathizing  with  Missouri,  doubtless  gave 
thanks  that  he  was  still  alive.  He  was  shot  down  in  the  road  — 

*  The  following  appeal  from  Lane  was  sent  to  John  Brown  from  Topeka  on 
August  12:  "Mr.  Brown  —  Gen.  Joe  Cook  wants  you  to  come  to  Lawrence  this 
night,  for  we  expect  to  have  a  fight  on  Washington  Creek.  Come  to  Topeka  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  I  will  pilot  you  to  the  place.  Yours  in  Haste,  H.  Stratton." 
This  Mr.  Stratton  is  one  of  those  who  are  certain  that  John  Brown  commanded 
the  "right  wing  of  cavalry"  in  the  attack  on  Fort  Saunders  on  August  15.  The 
original  of  Stratton's  message  is  in  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 


236  JOHN  BROWN 

as  had  been  many  an  innocent  Free  Soiler  —  by  Archie  Crans- 
dell,  a  Free  State  man,  in  the  presence  of  James  H.  Holmes,  on 
March  2,  1857. 40  With  Brown  came  between  thirty  and  forty 
men,  whom  he  forthwith  began  to  organize  into  what  he 
called  a  "regular  volunteer  force,"  for  the  purpose  of  serving 
throughout  the  war  under  his  command.  The  "  Covenant"  * 
drawn  up  by  him  under  which  the  men  enlisted,  together  with 
the  first  enlistments  and  the  by-laws  which  were  intended  to 
be  the  articles  of  war,  still  exists,  and  shows  that  his  company 
organized  as  if  the  authority  of  a  State  were  behind  its  com 
mander.41 

Associated  with  Brown's  company  was  one  comprising  in 
part  some  recently  arrived  lowans,  "every  one  mounted  on 
captured  pro-slavery  horses."  John  Brown  now  gave  con 
siderable  thought  to  the  best  way  of  defending  Osawatomie. 
According  to  C.  G.  Allen,  one  of  the  men  encamped  there, 
Brown  desired  to  meet  the  enemy  at  the  Marais  des  Cygnes 
crossing,  to  the  east  of  the  town,  and  then  to  fall  back  on 
the  twin  block-houses.  He  was  certain  that  the  Missourians, 
rumors  of  whose  approach  were  already  in  the  air,  would  come 
in  considerable  force  if  at  all,  a  prognostication  eminently 
correct.42 

On  August  24  the  Brown  and  Cline  companies  set  out  for 
the  South,  marching  eight  miles  and  camping  on  Sugar  Creek, 
Linn  County.  That  evening  John  Brown  made  a  speech  to 
his  company,  in  which,  according  to  Bondi,  he  made  these 
prescriptions  for  the  conduct  of  his  men  when  on  the  war 
path: 

"He  wished  all  of  us  to  understand  that  we  must  not  molest 
women  or  children,  nor  to  take  or  capture  anything  useless  to  use 
for  Free  State  people ;  further,  never  destroy  any  kind  of  property 
wantonly,  nor  burn  any  buildings,  as  Free  State  people  could  use 
them  after  the  Pro-slavery  people  were  driven  out ;  never  consider 
that  any  captured  horses  or  cattle  were  anything  else  but  the  com 
mon  property  of  the  Free  State  army,  the  horses  for  military  use 
and  the  cattle  for  food  for  the  Free  State  soldiers  and  Free  State 
settlers.  He  ordered,  also,  that  we,  his  company,  should  always 
keep  some  distance  in  camp  from  the  Cline  Company,  as  they  were< 
too  riotous." 

*  See  Appendix. 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  237 

While  in  camp  here,  news  reached  the  captains  that  a  large 
pro-slavery  force  was  in  the  immediate  neighborhood.  The 
Cline  company  took  the  lead  the  next  morning,  going  in  one 
direction,  Brown's  in  another.  The  luck  of  running  down  the 
enemy  came  to  Captain  Cline.  He  captured  some  spies  and 
finally  reached  and  charged  the  camp,  taking  twelve  prisoners 
and  the  camp  equipage,  one  of  the  Missourians  being  terribly 
wounded  in  one  leg.  In  the  course  of  this  fight  at  South  Middle 
Creek,  the  Free  State  men  released  George  W.  Partridge,  of 
Osawatomie,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Missouri 
men  the  day  before.  But  this  rescue  was  of  doubtful  value, 
since  he  met  a  violent  end  but  five  days  later.  The  Border 
Ruffians  fled  in  all  directions  for  dear  life,  shouting  that  John 
Brown  was  pursuing.43  As  part  of  the  Border  Ruffians  had 
gone  toward  Pottawatomie,  John  Brown  and  his  men  went  in 
that  direction  for  a  while  and  then  circled  back.  The  next 
morning,  August  26,  at  daybreak,  the  two  Free  State  bodies 
met,  Brown  charging  at  the  head  of  his  determined  com 
pany  in  accordance  with  his  characteristic  tactics  of  seeking 
close  quarters.  Fortunately,  before  an  actual  collision  took 
place,  the  friends  recognized  each  other.  An  eye-witness  in 
Cline's  company,  Dr.  J.  W.  Winkley,  has  thus  described  this 
incident: 

"They  came  swiftly  up  over  the  brow  of  the  hill,  in  full  view, 
with  Brown  at  their  head,  and,  without  halting  or  even  slacken 
ing  their  speed,  swung  into  line  of  battle.  Only  thirty  men!  Yet 
they  presented  a  truly  formidable  array.  The  line  was  formed  two 
deep,  and  was  stretched  out  to  give  the  men  full  room  for  action. 
Brown  sprang  his  horse  in  front  of  the  ranks,  waving  his  long  broad 
sword,  and  on  they  came,  sweeping  down  upon  us  with  irresistible 
fury.  .  .  ."« 

After  exchanging  mutual  congratulations,  both  bodies 
parted  again,  not,  however,  until  the  prisoners  had  been  duly 
exhorted  by  John  Brown  and  made  to  promise  that  they 
would  not  take  up  arms  again,  and  then  set  adrift.  Dr. 
Winkley  thus  recalls  some  of  Brown's  earnest  and  stirring 
words:  46 

"You  are  fighting  for  slavery.  You  want  to  make  or  keep  other 
people  slaves.  Do  you  not  know  that  your  wicked  efforts  will  end 
in  making  slaves  of  yourselves?  You  come  here  to  make  this  a  slave 


238  JOHN  BROWN 

State.  You  are  fighting  against  liberty,  which  our  Revolutionary 
fathers  fought  to  establish  in  this  Republic,  where  all  men  should 
be  free  and  equal,  with  the  inalienable  rights  of  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Therefore,  you  are  traitors  to  liberty  and 
to  your  country,  of  the  worst  kind,  and  deserve  to  be  hung  to  the 
nearest  tree.  .  .  .  You  we  forgive.  For,  as  you  yourselves  have 
confessed,  we  believe  it  can  be  said  of  you  that,  as  was  said  of 
them  of  old,  you  being  without  knowledge,  'you  know  not  what 
you  do.'  But  hereafter  you  will  be  without  excuse. 

"Go  in  peace.  Go  home  and  tell  your  neighbors  and  friends  of 
your  mistake.  We  deprive  you  only  of  your  arms,  and  do  that  only 
lest  some  of  you  are  not  yet  converted  to  the  right.  We  let  you  go 
free  of  punishment  this  time;  but,  do  we  catch  you  over  the  border 
again  committing  depredations,  you  must  not  expect,  nor  will  you 
receive,  any  mercy." 

John  Brown  then  rode  off  to  raid  the  pro-slavery  settle 
ments  on  Sugar  Creek.  By  a  coincidence,  the  leader  of  the 
Border  Ruffian  force  was  named  Captain  John  E.  Brown. 
To  his  house  the  anti-slavery  Brown  paid  an  early  visit,  taking 
as  his  toll  fifty  pro-slavery  cattle  and  all  the  men's  clothes 
the  house  contained.  Captain  Brown  assured  the  badly 
frightened  mistress  of  the  house  that  there  was  no  reason  for 
alarm,  —  that  he  never  hurt  women  and  children  as  did  her 
husband,  for  whom  he  left  his  compliments  and  the  message 
that  he  had  an  old  score  to  settle  with  him.46  Other  houses 
were  similarly  searched,  and  their  cattle  taken,  on  the  ground 
that  they  had  originally  been  Free  State  before  being  pur 
loined  by  the  pro-slavery  settlers. 

On  Thursday  evening,  August  28,  Brown  reached  Osawa- 
tomie,  travelling  slowly  because  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty 
head  of  cattle  he  drove  before  him.  Both  his  company  and 
Cline's  bivouacked  in  the  town  that  night.  The  next  morning 
early  they  divided  their  plunder  and  cattle,  and  Brown  moved 
his  camp  to  the  high  ground  north  of  Osawatomie,  where  now 
stands  the  State  Insane  Asylum.47  It  was  then  known  as 
Crane's  ranch.  An  ordinary  commander  would  have  allowed 
all  his  men  to  rest.  But  not  John  Brown.  He  was  in  the 
saddle  all  day,  riding  with  James  H.  Holmes  and  others  of  his 
men  miles  along  Pottawatomie  Creek,  whence  he  crossed  to 
Sugar  Creek,  returning  to  Osawatomie  with  more  captured 
cattle  by  way  of  the  Fort  Scott  trail.  The  locality  they  rode 
through  bore  many  evidences  of  the  irregular  warfare  going  on ; 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  239 

they  passed  near  the  homes  of  the  murdered  pro-slavery  men 
and  the  deserted  cabins  of  Free  State  settlers.  One  of  Brown's 
companions,  George  W.  Partridge,  passed  his  own  claim,  and 
there  saw  his  aged  parents  for  the  last  time,  all  unconscious 
of  the  impending  and,  for  him,  fatal  conflict  of  the  next  day. 
To  Holmes,  John  Brown  appeared  on  that  afternoon  more 
than  ever  the  natural  leader.  He  rode  a  tall  and  strong  chest 
nut  horse ;  his  spare  form  was  more  impressive  when  he  was 
mounted  than  when  he  was  afoot.  Alert  and  clear-sighted,  he 
ceaselessly  watched  the  landscape  for  evidences  of  the  enemy.48 

It  was  as  he  was  returning  thus,  in  a  cloud  of  dust,  and 
driving  the  motley  herd  before  him,  that  he  met  a  party  of 
men  galloping  toward  him.  The  newcomers  turned  out  to  be 
his  son  Frederick,  Alexander  G.  Hawes,  John  Still,  George 
Cutter  and  a  Mr.  Adamson,  who  had  been  sent  down  from 
Lawrence  by  General  Lane  with  the  earnest  request  that  John 
Brown  and  the  other  leading  Free  State  men  go  at  once  to 
Lawrence,  to  take  part  in  the  reorganization  of  the  Free  State 
forces,  and  also  to  oppose  Atchison,  who  was  then  reported 
about  to  invade  Kansas  once  more  and  with  a  large  body  of 
men.49  After  consultation  it  was  decided  that  the  call  should  be 
heeded  on  the  next  day.  As  both  parties  reached  Osawatomie, 
about  sundown,  John  Brown  and  his  son  Frederick  parted  for 
the  last  time.  The  son  went  on  toward  Lawrence,  but,  accord 
ing  to  George  Cutter,  he  felt  indisposed  and  decided  to  spend 
the  night  at  the  house  of  a  settler  named  Carr,  on  the  Law 
rence  road,  only  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  from  the  cabin  of 
his  uncle,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Adair.  With  Frederick  Brown  stayed 
Mr.  Hawes.  Either  at  Carr's  or  in  the  neighboring  Cronkhite 
house  were  Still,  Cutter  and  Adamson  as  lodgers  for  the  night. 

John  Brown  and  his  party,  with  the  exception  of  Holmes, 
who  spent  the  night  in  town,  crossed  the  Marais  des  Cygnes 
to  their  camp  on  the  Crane  claim,  taking  their  cattle  with 
them.  Captain  Cline  and  about  fifteen  men  remained  in  the 
town,  at  the  juncture  of  the  Marais  des  Cygnes  and  the  Potta- 
watomie;  here  stood  the  hamlet  and  its  block-house,  the  latter 
facing  toward  the  east,  from  which  direction  it  was  feared 
the  Missourians  might  come.  The  cry  of  wolf  had,  however, 
been  heard  in  Osawatomie  so  often,  that  on  the  29th  of  August 
no  especial  apprehension  was  felt. 


240  JOHN  BROWN 

Captain  Shore  and  a  small  company  of  Chicago  men 
left  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  bound  northward 
toward  Lawrence,  and  no  sentinels  were  put  on  guard  save 
by  John  Brown,  in  accordance  with  the  articles  of  enlistment 
of  his  company.  Two  of  his  men,  Bondi  and  Benjamin,  were 
on  guard  from  two  A.  M.  on  the  morning  of  the  3Oth  until  the 
firing  began,50  but  they  were  at  a  considerable  distance  from 
Osawatomie,  facing  toward  Paola  to  the  northeast,  from 
which  direction  John  Brown  himself  expected  that  the  ad 
vance,  if  any,  would  be  made.  Early  in  the  night  the  long- 
expected  warning  came,  after  nearly  every  one  had  gone  to 
bed.  John  Yelton,  a  mail-carrier,  arrived  fresh  from  a  ten 
days'  captivity  in  the  town  of  New  Santa  Fe,  Missouri, 
and  warned  the  Greer  family  that  the  citizens  must  prepare 
either  to  fight  at  once  or  flee.  Both  Holmes  and  Dr.  Upde- 
graff  were  sleeping  in  the  house,  but  were  too  tired  fully  to 
comprehend  the  warning.  Action  was  therefore  deferred  until 
daylight. 

Yelton's  information  was  wholly  correct.  The  plan  to  raid 
Osawatomie  and  finally  destroy  it  had  carefully  matured  in 
the  minds  of  the  pro-slavery  leaders,  but  Osawatomie  was 
only  one  objective  of  the  formidable  expedition  which  left 
Westport  on  August  23,  and  marched  on  the  same  day  to 
New  Santa  Fe.  There  four  hundred  and  eighty  pro-slavery 
men  were  found  in  camp.  By  the  25th,  the  number  of  the 
Ruffians  then  being  eleven  hundred  and  fifty,  they  were  reg 
ularly  organized  as  two  regiments,  with  Atchison  as  major- 
general,  John  W.  Reid,  a  Mexican  War  veteran,  as  brigadier- 
general,  and  Colonel  P.  H.  Rosser,  of  Virginia,  as  colonel 
of  the  second  regiment,  while  the  first  was  entrusted  to  a 
Colonel  Brown.  Camp  was  broken  on  the  26th.  On  the 
29th,  at  Bull  Creek,  forty  miles  from  Osawatomie,  General 
Reid,  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  mounted  men  and  one  six- 
pounder,  was  detached  to  proceed  to  the  Abolition  settlement. 
According  to  a  pro-slavery  officer,  W.  Limerick,  who  wrote 
to  General  Shields,  of  Lexington,  Missouri,  on  the  29th  from 
Bull  Creek,  the  plan  was  to  attack  Osawatomie  at  once : 

"It  will  all  be  destroyed;  we  then  go  to  Hickory  Point,  all  the 
houses  in  the  settlement  will  be  burned ;  Topeka  will  share  the  same 
fate.  We  will  wait  at  this  place  for  some  200  or  300  men  expected 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  241 

to  arrive  to-morrow.  We  are  confident  of  success  and  expect  to  clear 
the  whole  territory  of  Abolitionists  before  our  return.  ...  I  am 
just  informed  that  Lawrence  will  be  attacked  on  Sunday  next." 

General  Reid  made  an  all-night  march,  on  leaving  Bull 
Creek,  and,  taking  a  leaf  out  of  John  Brown's  tactics,  reached 
Osawatomie  in  the  early  morning.  He  was  too  experienced 
a  soldier  to  enter  from  the  direction  from  which  he  would  be 
expected,  but  passed  the  town  to  the  south  and,  after  getting 
well  beyond  it,  went  northward  until  he  struck  the  Lawrence 
road.  He  then  turned  his  army  again,  and  just  as  the  light 
began  to  glimmer  in  the  east,  on  the  morning  of  the  3Oth, 
reached  the  high  ground  above  the  town,  near  the  Adair,  Carr 
and  Cronkhite  houses.  He  thus  not  only  entered  from  the 
west,  but  had  the  opportunity  to  charge  downhill  into  the 
settlement,  if  he  wished  to  utilize  it. 

On  his  way,  Reid's  men  were  joined  by  the  Rev.  Martin 
White,  as  malignant  as  ever  in  his  hatred  of  all  Free  Soil  men, 
and  particularly  eager  to  enter  Osawatomie  in  order  to  recap 
ture  some  of  his  stolen  horses.  Because  of  his  knowledge  of 
the  country,  White  joined  the  "point"  of  the  advance  guard, 
composed  of  two  or  three  men.  As  they  came  over  the  crest 
of  the  hill,  with  the  Adair  cabin  to  the  left  of  the  road  and  the 
Carr  house  to  their  right,  a  tall  and  vigorous  man  approached 
them,  all  unsuspicious  of  their  purpose.  It  was  Frederick 
Brown,  who  had  risen  early  to  feed  the  horses,  which  had  been 
left  overnight  on  the  Adair  place,  preparatory  to  a  prompt 
start  for  Lawrence.  It  is  the  tradition  in  Osawatomie  that 
Frederick  Brown  greeted  White  in  a  friendly  way.  White 
himself  thus  told  the  story  to  the  Kansas  (pro-slavery)  House 
of  Representatives  on  February  13  of  the  next  year: 

"Whilst  I  was  acting  as  one  of  the  advance  guard  coming  in  con 
tact  with  their  picket  guard,  Frederick  Brown,  one  of  their  guard, 
advanced  toward  us.  We  halted  and  I  recognized  him  and  ordered 
him  to  'halt,'  but  he  replied,  'I  know  you!'  and  continued  to  ad 
vance  towards  me.  I  ordered  him  a  second  time  to 'halt.'  By  this 
time  he  was  getting  very  close  to  me,  and  threw  his  hand  to  his 
revolver;  to  save  my  own  life  I  shot  him  down."51 

White's  first  bullet  went  straight  through  his  victim's  heart 
and  Brown  tumbled  to  the  ground,  —  probably  without  hav 
ing  any  thought  of  violence  before  consciousness  fled  forever. 


242  JOHN  BROWN 

If  it  was  the  spell  of  the  Pottawatomie  murders  which  had 
brought  him  back  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  dread  crimes 
upon  which  he  had  gazed  helpless,  between  a  sense  of  wrong 
and  fidelity  to  his  dominating  father,  he  had  now  paid  in 
full  for  his  participation  as  an  accessory.  Certain  it  is  that 
Frederick  Brown  was  no  more  prepared  for  his  sudden  end  than 
were  the  men  whose  blood  had  been  shed  by  John  Brown's 
orders,  that  there  might  be  remission  of  sin  for  the  Border 
Ruffians.  White  pretended  to  recognize  the  boots  on  Brown 
as  a  pair  stolen  from  his  son  in  the  raid  upon  White;  but  there 
is  no  evidence  to  show  that  Frederick  Brown  was  at  that  time 
elsewhere  than  in  Lawrence.  On  January  i,  1860,  White 
wrote  to  the  Bates  County,  Missouri,  Standard:  "The  same 
day  I  shot  Fred,  I  would  have  shot  the  last  devil  of  the  gang 
that  was  in  the  attack  on  my  house,  if  I  had  known  them  and 
got  the  chance,"  -  a  truly  Christian  sentiment  for  a  minister 
of  the  gospel. 

The  pretence  that  he  saw  in  Frederick  Brown  a  picket  of 
the  enemy  was  obviously  an  afterthought  of  White's.  There 
was  no  sign  of  any  stirring  as  the  two  men  met,  and  the  next 
few  developments  certainly  dispel  the  theory  that  the  laws 
of  war  were  being  followed.  The  shot  that  killed  Brown  was 
heard  both  at  the  Adair  and  Carr  houses,  as  well  as  the  noise 
of  horses'  feet  as  the  advance  guard  passed  on  toward  the  town. 
As  the  Rev.  Mr.  Adair  came  hurriedly  out  of  his  house,  he  met 
David  Garrison,  a  relative  and  a  settler  in  that  vicinity,  who 
had  slept  in  a  shed  in  the  rear  of  the  Adair  cabin.  They  hurried 
to  the  road,  and,  looking  down  it,  Garrison  asked:  "What  is 
that  lying  on  the  road?  "  Adair  thought  it  a  blanket  —  only  to 
find  it  was  the  body  of  his  nephew  Frederick.  As  they  stood 
over  the  corpse,  some  of  the  others,  Cutter  and  Hawes  among 
them,  arrived  from  the  Carr  house.  Adair  hurried  westward 
to  see  if  any  one  else  was  coming,  and  quickly  perceived  the 
head  of  the  main  column  of  Reid's  forces,  now  steadily  ap 
proaching.  He  hurried  back,  shouting  to  the  others  to  save 
themselves.  Adair  safely  reached  his  own  cabin,  gave  a  warn 
ing,  and  then  hid  in  the  bushes  unharmed  until  his  children 
found  him  and  notified  him  that  he  might  return.  No  such 
good  fortune  attended  the  others.  Garrison,  Hawes  and  Cut 
ter  made  the  mistake  of  returning  to  Carr's,  where  they  were 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  243 

speedily  seen  and  pursued  into  the  brush.  Hawes  miraculously 
escaped  without  injury,  the  Border  Ruffians  almost  riding 
over  him.  Cutter,  being  overtaken  after  exchanging  shots  with 
his  pursuers,  received  in  his  head  and  body  four  charges  of 
buckshot.  Leaving  him  for  a  moment,  the  Ruffians  followed  the 
unarmed  Garrison,  and  overhauled  and  summarily  despatched 
him.  Returning  to  Cutter,  one  of  the  Ruffians  dismounted, 
kicked  him,  turned  him  over  and  said :  "  He  breathes;  if  I  only 
had  another  charge  in  my  gun,  I  would  put  it  in  his  head.  I 
guess  that  would  fix  him."  Fortunately  for  Cutter,  the  Mis- 
sourian  could  not  make  his  revolver  work,  and  so  rode  off 
saying:  "Let  him  rip,  he  will  die  fast  enough!"  —  Such  was 
humanity  in  Kansas  on  the  3Oth  of  August,  1856!  Despite 
thirty  distinct  wounds,  Cutter  survived  his  terrible  experi 
ence,  Hawes  bringing  him  aid  and  food  as  soon  as  the  Ruf 
fians  disappeared. 

Had  Reid's  men  now  galloped  directly  into  the  village, 
which  was  but  a  mile  and  a  half  away,  they  would  have  been 
in  complete  control  before  any  one  could  have  slipped  away. 
Instead,  his  men  delayed  on  the  ridge,  perhaps  for  breakfast, 
and  the  news  of  their  coming  and  of  the  death  of  Frederick 
Brown  was  carried  into  the  town  by  Charles  Adair,  a  mere 
boy,  who  galloped  in.  A  messenger  at  once  crossed  the  river 
to  alarm  John  Brown.  The  first  to  take  the  aggressive  were 
Dr.  Updegraff  and  Holmes.  The  latter,  who  was  saddling 
up  when  the  news  came,  rode  up  toward  the  Adairs'  until  he 
sighted  the  Border  Ruffians,  upon  whom  he  fired  three  times 
from  his  Sharp's  rifle.  This  incident  again  checked  the  advance 
and  gave  the  Free  State  men  time  to  rally  to  the  defence. 
Brown  himself  was  preparing  breakfast  as  the  news  of  his 
son's  death  reached  him.  He  seized  his  arms,  cried,  "Men, 
come  on!"  and  with  Luke  F.  Parsons  hurried  downhill  to  the 
crossing  nearest  the  town.  The  others  delayed  to  finish  their 
coffee,  but  most  of  them  overtook  their  leader  as  he  reached 
the  town.  On  their  way  John  Brown  asked:  "Parsons,  were 
you  ever  under  fire?  "  "  I  replied, '  No,'  "  relates  Parsons, " '  no, 
but  I  will  obey  orders.  Tell  me  what  you  want  me  to  do.' " 
To  which  Brown  answered  with  the  well-known  sentence, 
"Take  more  care  to  end  life  well  than  to  live  long."  With  this 
sentiment  on  his  lips,  the  grim  chieftain  of  the  "volunteer 


244  JOHN  BROWN 

regulars"  entered  the  engagement  which  gave  him  more 
renown  than  anything  save  the  climax  of  his  career;  from 
this  time  forward  it  was  as  "Old  Osawatomie  Brown"  that 
he  was  most  generally  known. 

As  they  reached  the  block-house,  Brown  said:  "Parsons, 
take  ten  men  and  go  into  that  block-house  and  hold  your  posi 
tions  as  long  as  you  can.  I  '11  take  the  rest  of  the  men,  go  into 
the  timber  and  annoy  them  from  the  flank."  This  Parsons 
did,  finding  in  the  block-house  Spencer  Kellogg  Brown,  son 
of  O.  C.  Brown,  the  founder  of  the  town,  a  lad  fourteen  years 
old,  of  rare  pluck  and  daring  disposition,  who,  being  allowed 
to  go  and  get  a  rifle,  returned  with  it  in  a  few  minutes.  From 
the  second  story,  Parsons's  men  saw  the  Border  Ruffians  com 
ing  in  two  long  lines  with  their  brass  cannon.  One  of  them 
cried,  "We  cannot  stay  here,  they  will  drive  us  out."  When 
Parsons  and  Austin  took  their  places  in  the  second  story  to 
study  the  situation,  their  men  all  decamped  to  join  Brown, 
Following  them,  Parsons  met  Captain  Cline  and  his  company 
of  fifteen  well-mounted  men  retiring  through  the  town,  aban 
doning  their  cattle  and  other  plunder.  Only  four  days  pre 
viously,  this  little  band,  then  considerably  larger,  had  gallantly 
charged  the  Border  Ruffians  on  South  Middle  Creek.  On  this 
particular  morning,  Captain  Cline  could  not  be  induced  to  stay 
very  long  on  the  line  of  battle;  one  of  his  men,  Theodore 
Parker  Powers,  was  killed  in  the  few  minutes  they  were  at 
the  front.  Captain  Cline  explained  to  the  Tribune  52  that  his 
men  did  not  retire  until  they  ran  out  of  ammunition.  In  any 
event,  their  disappearance  weakened  the  Free  State  force  not 
a  little.  Parsons  and  Austin  found  that  Brown  had  skilfully 
hidden  his  men  behind  the  trees  and  brush  in  the  fringe  of 
timber  along  the  Marais  des  Cygnes,  which  ran  nearly  par 
allel  to  the  road  down  which  the  Missourians  were  coming. 
There  is  to-day  still  a  fringe  of  timber  along  the  river,  and  still 
the  open  space  across  which  the  opposing  forces  fired  at  each 
other. 

The  Border  Ruffians  were  mounted  and  in  the  open.  When 
the  shots  from  the  Free  State  men  struck  among  them,  the 
agitation  caused  by  wounded  men  or  horses  threw  the  com 
panies  into  confusion,  which  they  at  first  tried  to  correct  by 
re-forming  under  fire.  As  the  firing  grew  hotter,  more  men 


THE   OSAWATOMIE    BATTLEFIELD 

Looking  toward  the  river 


PART    OF   THE    BLACK   JACK    BATTLEFIELD 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  245 

joined  John  Brown,  among  them  Alexander  Hawes,  unde 
terred  by  his  narrow  escape  when  Garrison  and  Cutter  were 
shot.  As  each  man  came  under  his  eye,  Brown  placed  him 
behind  a  tree  or  a  rock,  but  the  leader  himself  walked  up  and 
down,  encouraging  the  others  and  bidding  them  make  their 
fire  effective.  His  son  Jason  was  near  him  most  of  the  time. 
Once  Brown  stopped  and  asked  Parsons  if  he  could  see  any 
thing  torn  or  bloody  upon  his  back.  "  No,  Captain,  I  cannot," 
replied  Parsons.  "Well,  something  hit  me  a  terrible  rap  on  the 
back,"  said  Brown;  "I  don't  intend  to  be  shot  in  the  back  if 
I  can  help  it." 

It  is  not  probable  that,  all  told,  John  Brown  had  more  than 
thirty-eight  or  forty  men  in  line,  aside  from  Cline's  force.  He 
himself  said  about  thirty.  They  held  their  ground  well,  even 
after  Reid  brought  his  cannon  into  play.  His  grape-shot  went 
too  high  into  the  trees,  bringing  down  branches  and  adding  to 
the  discomfort  of  the  Free  Soil  men,  but  not  actually  injuring 
anybody.  Next,  the  Border  Ruffians  dismounted,  and,  urged 
by  General  Reid,  who  waved  his  sword  and  shouted  loudly, 
advanced  toward  the  woods.  At  once  Brown's  men  began  to 
retreat,  following  the  stream  and  keeping  in  the  protection  of 
the  timber  until  they  had  gone  some  distance  down  toward 
the  saw-mill.  When  they  were  on  the  bank,  all  suddenly 
turned  as  if  an  order  had  been  given  and  jumped  into  the 
river.  It  was  the  Border  Ruffians'  opportunity.  In  a  skirmish 
or  in  real  warfare,  to  have  an  unfordable  river  at  one's  back 
is  the  worst  of  tactics.  For  this  John  Brown  must  not  be  cen 
sured,  since  it  was  the  only  place  where  he  could  have  made 
a  stand,  unless  he  had  chosen  to  fight  in  the  settlement  itself 
and  risked  the  lives  of  the  women  and  children  there. 

But  if  Brown  was  not  to  blame  for  this  strategy,  the  con 
sequences  of  it  were  serious,  in  that  George  Partridge  was 
killed  in  the  river.  Holmes  saved  his  life  miraculously  by  div 
ing  when  under  heavy  fire.  Parsons  and  Austin  narrowly 
escaped  Partridge's  fate,  Austin  by  hiding  between  some  logs 
near  the  saw-mill,  and  shooting  a  Border  Ruffian  out  of  his 
saddle.  Dr.  Updegraff,  who  had  been  badly  wounded  in  the 
thigh,  managed  to  escape.  George  Grant  had  time  to  notice 
that  John  Brown,  as  he  waded  the  river,  cut  a  "queer  figure, 
in  a  broad  straw  hat  and  a  white  linen  duster,  his  old  coat- 


246  JOHN  BROWN 

tails  floating  outspread  upon  the  water  and  a  revolver  held 
high  in  each  hand,  over  his  head."  Jason  Brown,  too,  re 
members  the  generalissimo's  linen  duster;  he,  like  his  father, 
got  safely  across.  The  fourteen-year-old  soldier,  Spencer  K. 
Brown,  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands,  as  did  Robert  Reynolds, 
H.  K.  Thomas  and  Charles  Kaiser.  The  latter,  a  veteran  of 
a  European  revolution,  fought  to  the  last  on  the  edge  of 
the  river  before  yielding  to  a  relentless  enemy.  William  B. 
Fuller,  a  settler,  was  captured  before  the  fight  began,  and 
Joseph  H.  Morey  later  in  the  day. 

In  later  years,  General  Reid  insisted  that  there  was  no  battle 
at  Osawatomie,  — ' '  merely  the  driving  out  of  a  flock  of  quail."  M 
But  after  the  quail  had  crossed  the  river,  there  was  still  mis 
chief  for  Reid  to  do.  He  fired  a  round  or  two  at  the  block 
house  before  all  of  Brown's  men  were  out  of  range  and  hearing, 
and  then,  when  there  was  no  reply,  his  Ruffians  began  the 
work  of  reducing  Osawatomie  to  ashes.  This  was  done  despite 
General  Reid's  protest.  If  he  had  held  his  men  bravely  to 
their  work  in  the  hour's  fighting  with  Brown,  he  was  unequal 
now  to  saving  the  twenty-five  to  thirty  houses  and  stores, 
that  were  plundered  and  then  burned.  O.  C.  Brown's  safe  was 
robbed  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars,  after  which 
the  torch  was  applied  to  his  house.  Three  bags  full  of  mail, 
which  the  warning  mail-carrier,  John  Yelton,  had  brought, 
were  cut  open  and  their  contents  examined  and  flung  to  the 
winds.  The  horses  and  cattle  at  hand  were  gathered  up  and 
carried  off,  including  Cline's  booty  from  South  Middle  Creek. 
The  saw-mill  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  was  not  harmed, 
because,  it  is  said,  a  single  man,  Freeman  Austin,  opened  such 
a  brisk  fire  on  the  Border  Ruffians  as  they  approached,  that 
they  retired  in  haste. 

By  ten  o'clock  of  that  evening,  General  Reid's  command 
was  back  at  the  Bull  Creek  camp.  On  the  next  day  he  made 
the  following  official  report  of  his  enterprise : 

CAMP  BULL  CREEK,  Aug.  31. 

GENTLEMEN:  —  I  moved  with  250  men  on  the  Abolition  fort  and 
town  of  Osawattomie  —  the  headquarters  of  Old  Brown  —  on  night 
before  last;  marched  40  miles  and  attacked  the  town  without  dis 
mounting  the  men  about  sunrise  on  yesterday.  We  had  a  brisk 
fight  for  an  hour  or  more  and  had  five  men  wounded  —  none  dan- 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  247 

gerously  —  Capt.  Boice,  William  Gordon  and  three  others.  We 
killed  about  thirty  of  them,  among  the  number,  certain,  a  son  of 
Old  Brown,  and  almost  certain  Brown  himself;  destroyed  all  their 
ammunition  and  provisions,  and  the  boys  would  burn  the  town  to 
the  ground.  /  could  not  help  it. 

We  must  be  supported  by  our  friends.  We  still  want  more  men 
and  ammunition,  ammunition  of  all  sorts.  Powder,  muskets,  balls 
and  caps  is  the  constant  cry. 

I  write  in  great  haste,  as  I  have  been  in  saddle,  rode  100  miles, 
and  fought  a  battle  without  rest. 

Your  friend, 

REID.54  , 

A  joint  letter  of  Congrave  Jackson  and  G.  B.  M.  Maughas, 
"Capt.  of  Company  B,"  dated  at  Bull  Creek,  September  I, 
gives  another  pro-slavery  view  of  the  fight: 

"The  enemy  commenced  firing  on  us  at  half  a  mile,  which  is  point 
blank  range  for  Sharp's  Rifles.  They  had  taken  cover  under  a  thick 
growth  of  underwood  and  numbered  about  150.  We  charged  upon 
them,  having  to  march  800  yards  across  an  open  prairie,  against 
an  unseen  foe,  through  a  hail-storm  of  rifle  bullets.  This  was  done 
with  a  coolness  and  ability  unsurpassed,  until  we  got  within  50  yards 
of  them  when  we  commenced  a  galling  fire,  which  together  with  some 
telling  rounds  of  grape  from  our  cannon,  soon  drove  them  from 
their  hiding  place  with  a  loss  of  some  20  or  30  men  killed.  We  had 
lost  not  a  single  man,  and  had  only  five  or  six  wounded."55  ^.^ 

The  report  of  the  death  of  John  Brown  persisted  for  only 
a  few  days.  That  it  was  believed,  or  hoped  for,  in  St.  Louis  a 
week  later,  appears  from  the  following  editorial  in  the  St. 
Louis  Morning  Herald  of  September  6,  1856,  which  declared 
that  because  of  Pottawatomie,  "by  far  the  most  atrocious 
and  inexcusable  outrage  yet  perpetrated  in  that  distracted 
Territory,  ...  his  death  and  the  destruction  of  his  family 
would,  for  that  reason,  be  less  a  matter  of  regret  even  with 
men  of  the  humanest  feeling."  i 

Brown  made  no  attempt  to  rally  his  force  after  it  was  driven 
across  the  Marais  des  Cygnes.  It  was  too  scattered  to  make 
that  possible.  Indeed,  Bondi,  Benjamin  and  Hawes  set  off 
at  once  for  Lawrence,  and  so,  by  himself,  did  Holmes.  John 
Brown  and  Jason  spent  a  good  part  of  the  day  searching  for 
a  ford  above  the  town  by  which  they  might  cross  to  the  Adair 
house.  But  before  they  set  out  to  reach  their  relatives  and 
find  the  dead  body  of  their  son  and  brother,  Frederick,  they 


JOHN  BROWN 

stood  on  the  bank  above  the  river  and  watched  the  smoke 
and  flames  of  burning  Osawatomie.  "God  sees  it,"  said  John 
Brown,  according  to  Jason,  as  he  watched  this  spectacle,  the 
tears  rolling  down  his  face.  "  I  have  only  a  short  time  to  live 
—  only  one  death  to  die,  and  I  will  die  fighting  for  this  cause. 
There  will  be  no  more  peace  in  this  land  until  slavery  is  done 
for.  I  will  give  them  something  else  to  do  than  to  extend  slave 
territory.  I  will  carry  the  war  into  Africa." 

If  the  Border  Ruffians  were  at  sea  in  their  estimate  of  the 
loss  of  life  they  had  inflicted,  John  Brown  was  still  further 
from  the  mark  in  his  report  of  General  Reid's  casualties. 
This  appears  from  his  letter  of  September  7  to  his  family : 

LAWRENCE  K  T  7th  Sept  1856 

DEAR  WIFE  &  CHILDREN  EVERY  ONE  I  have  one  moment  to 
write  to  you  to  say  that  I  am  yet  alive  that  Jason,  &  family  were  well 
yesterday  John ;  &  family  I  hear  are  well ;  he  being  yet  a  prisoner. 
On  the  morning  of  the  3Oth  Aug  an  attack  was  made  by  the  ruffians 
on  Osawatomie  numbering  some  400  by  whose  scouts  our  dear 
Fredk  was  shot  dead  without  warning  he  supposing  them  to  be 
Free  State  men  as  near  as  we  can  learn.  One  other  man  a  Cousin 
of  Mr.  Adair  was  murdered  by  them  about  the  same  time  that 
Fredk  was  killed  &  one  badly  wounded  at  the  same  time.  At  this 
time  I  was  about  3  miles  off  where  I  had  some  14  or  15  men  over 
night  that  I  had  just  enlisted  to  serve  under  me  as  regulars.  These 
I  collected  as  well  as  I  could  with  some  12  or  15  more  &  in  about 
|  of  an  Hour  attacked  them  from  a  wood  with  thick  undergrowth, 
with  this  force  we  threw  them  into  confusion  for  about  15  or  20 
minuets  during  which  time  we  killed  &  wounded  from  70  to  80  of 
the  enemy  as  they  say  &  then  we  escaped  as  well  as  we  could  with 
one  killed  while  escaping ;  Two  or  Three  wounded ;  &  as  many  more 
missing.  Four  or  Five  Free-State  men  were  butchered  during  the 
day  in  all.  Jason  fought  bravely  by  my  side  during  the  fight  & 
escaped  with  me  he  being  unhurt.  I  was  struck  by  a  partly  spent 
Grape,  Canister,  or  Rifle  shot  which  bruised  me  some,  but  did  not 
injure  me  seriously.  "Hitherto  the  Lord  hath  helped  me"  notwith 
standing  my  afflictions.  Things  seem  rather  quiet  just  now;  but 
what  another  Hour  will  bring  I  cannot  say.  I  have  seen  Three  or 
Four  letters  from  Ruth  &  one  from  Watson,  of  July  or  Aug  which 
are  all  I  have  seen  since  in  June.  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  once 
more  from  you  &  hope  that  you  will  continue  to  write  to  some  of 
the  friends  so  that  I  may  hear  from  you.  I  am  utterly  unable  to 
write  you  for  most  of  the  time.  May  the  God  of  our  fathers  bless 
&  save  you  all 

Your  Affectionate  Husband  &  Father, 

JOHN  BROWN. 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  249 

MONDAY  MORNING,  8th  Sept.  56 

Jason  has  just  come  in  Left  all  well  as  usual.  Johns  trial  is  to 
come  off  or  commence  today.  Yours  ever 

JOHN  BROWN.M 

Subsequently,  John  Brown  thus  summarized  the  results  of 
the  fight  for  Lydia  Maria  Child: 

Border  Ruffian  force  at  Osawatomie  Aug.  3Oth  400  men. 
Free  State  force  30  men. 

Ruffians  (as  by  their  private  account  31  or  32)  killed,  &  from 
45  to  50  wounded. 

Loss  of  Free  State  men  in  the  fight  one  killed  &  2  wounded  Free 
Statemen  murdered  Four;  &  one  left  for  dead  with  twenty  shot  & 
bullet  holes.  One  proslavery  man  murdered  by  themselves. 

Your  friend 

JOHN  BROWN.S? 

The  pro-slavery  man  reported  murdered  was  named  Wil 
liam  Williams,  said  to  have  been  a  "Free  State  Missourian," 
whom  neither  party  claimed ;  his  name  is  not  on  the  Osawato 
mie  monument.  He  was  killed  in  the  town  before  the  Border 
Ruffians  left.  As  to  the  loss  of  the  latter,  there  is  no  evidence 
to  show  in  contemporary  accounts  or  newspapers  that  it  was 
as  heavy  as  Brown  himself  thought.  He  prepared  for  the 
press,  on  the  same  day  that  he  wrote  the  above  letter,  a  more 
elaborate  story  of  the  battle,  which  in  no  wise  differed  from 
the  letter  in  any  of  its  facts.  It  is  a  concise  and  excellently 
written  narrative,  one  of  the  best  products  of  his  pen.  In  it  he 
thus  explains  his  plan  in  taking  his  men  into  the  timber: 

"As  I  had  no  means  of  learning  correctly  the  force  of  the  enemy, 
I  placed  twelve  of  the  recruits  in  a  log-house  hoping  we  might  be 
able  to  defend  the  town.  I  then  gathered  some  fifteen  more  men 
together,  whom  we  armed  with  guns,  and  we  started  in  the  direction 
of  the  enemy.  After  going  a  few  rods  we  could  see  them  approach 
ing  the  town  in  line  of  battle,  about  half  a  mile  off,  upon  a  hill  west 
of  the  village.  I  then  gave  up  all  idea  of  doing  more  than  to  annoy, 
from  the  timber  near  the  town,  into  which  we  were  all  retreated, 
and  which  was  filled  with  a  thick  growth  of  underbrush ;  but  I  had 
no  time  to  recall  the  twelve  men  in  the  log-house,  and  so  lost  their 
assistance  in  the  fight.  At  the  point  above  named  I  met  with  Cap 
tain  Cline,  a  very  active  young  man,  who  had  with  him  some  twelve 
or  fifteen  mounted  men,  and  persuaded  him  to  go  with  us  into  the 
timber,  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  Osage,  or  Marais  des  Cygnes, 
a  little  to  the  northwest  from  the  village."58 


250  JOHN  BROWN 

It  would  seem  from  the  above  that  John  Brown  was  not 
aware  that  the  men  from  the  block-house  joined  his  line.  Yet 
he  must  have  known  that  Parsons  and  Austin  joined  him. 
This  confusion  may  account  for  his  underestimate  of  the  men 
who,  from  their  own  narratives  and  those  of  others,  are  known 
to  have  fought  with  him  in  the  timber.  As  for  the  prisoners, 
Charles  Kaiser  met  the  same  cruel  fate  as  did  Dow,  Major 
Hoyt,  Hoppe  and  the  long  list  of  those  murdered  in  cold  blood 
by  the  Border  Ruffians.  Two  days  after  his  capture,  on  Sep 
tember  I ,  after  the  army  of  Atchison  had  retreated  to  Cedar 
Creek,  he  was  taken  out  and  shot  to  death,  —  first  having 
been  told,  it  is  said,  to  run  for  his  life.  This  cowardly  murder 
is  assigned  by  one  of  the  prisoners  as  a  reason  why  the  Border 
Ruffian  force,  the  command  of  which  was  resigned  by  Gen 
eral  Atchison  to  General  Reid  on  the  same  day,  began  to  melt 
away.59  Spencer  Kellogg  Brown,  the  boy  prisoner,  was  set 
free  by  the  Border  Ruffians,  only  to  die,  if  anything,  more 
tragically  than  Kaiser.  After  having  been  a  useful  Federal 
spy,  he  was  caught  by  the  Confederates  and  hanged  in  Rich 
mond  on  September  25,  1863,  when  but  twenty-one  years 
old.60  The  other  four  prisoners  were  sent  down  the  Missouri 
River  on  the  Polar  Star,  under  pain  of  death  if  they  re 
turned  to  Kansas.  At  St.  Louis  they  were  permitted  to  go 
their  way. 

The  news  of  Brown's  defeat  and  the  burning  of  Osawato- 
mie  intensified  an  altogether  critical  situation  in  Kansas.  The 
acting  Governor,  Woodson,  was  openly  pro-slavery;  it  was 
his  proclamation  of  August  25,  declaring  Kansas  to  be  "in 
a  state  of  open  insurrection  and  rebellion, "  and  calling  on  all 
good  citizens  to  put  down  the  "large  bodies  of  armed  men, 
many  of  whom  have  just  arrived  from  the  States,"  which  gave 
Atchison  and  Reid's  army  the  excuse  to  masquerade  once 
more  as  Kansas  militia,  or  assistants  to  the  legally  constituted 
authorities.  That  they  were  a  large  body  of  armed  men,  all  of 
whom  had  just  arrived  from  another  State,  did  not  in  the  least 
excite  Mr.  Woodson's  distrust.  Three  days  after  the  battle  of 
Osawatomie,  on  September  5,  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  order 
Lieut.-Col.  Cooke,  of  the  United  States  Dragoons,  to  proceed 
at  once  to  Topeka,  to  invest  the  town  and  disarm  and  arrest 
"all  the  insurrectionists  or  aggressive  invaders  against  the 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  251 

organized  government"  to  be  found  at  or  near  Topeka,  and  to 
retain  them  as  prisoners.  He  was  especially  ordered  to  level 
all  their  breastworks,  forts  or  fortifications,  to  the  ground,  and 
to  intercept  all  armed  persons  coming  over  "Lane's  trail" 
from  the  Nebraska  line  to  Topeka.61  Naturally,  Lieut.-Col. 
Cooke  declined  to  obey  so  extraordinary  and  partisan  an 
order,  for  which  decision  he  was  subsequently  highly  com 
mended  by  the  Secretary  of  War.  Jefferson  Davis,  however, 
was  so  greatly  wrought  up  over  the  situation  in  the  Terri 
tory  on  September  3,  that  "the  position  of  the  insurgents" 
seemed  to  him  "open  rebellion  against  the  laws  and  consti 
tutional  authorities,  with  such  manifestation  of  a  purpose  to 
spread  devastation  over  the  land,  as  no  longer  justifies  fur 
ther  hesitation  or  indulgence."  In  thus  expressing  himself  to 
General  Smith,  he  added  that  "patriotism  and  humanity  alike 
require  that  rebellion  should  be  promptly  crushed.  ..."  To 
this  end,  General  Smith  was  notified  that  the  President  had 
ordered  the  organization  of  the  Kansas  militia ;  that  the  gen 
eral  was  to  ask  for  as  much  of  this  force  as  he  needed  for  the 
work  of  pacification,  and,  if  he  could  not  get  sufficient  aid 
from  this  source,  he  was  authorized  to  call  upon  the  Govern 
ors  of  Kentucky  and  Illinois  for  the  two  regiments  of  foot 
militia  requisitioned  that  same  day  by  President  Pierce  from 
each  State,  in  accordance  with  his  constitutional  rights.62  An 
excellent  regiment  of  regular  infantry,  the  Sixth,  had  already 
been  sent  to  the  Territory  as  a  reinforcement  to  the  First  Cav 
alry  and  Second  Dragoons.  As  it  turned  out,  the  Territory 
could  raise  only  a  few  companies  of  bona  fide  militia  for  Gen 
eral  Smith,  but  a  sudden  change  in  events  made  it  unneces 
sary  for  him  to  ask  for  more  troops,  or  to  call  on  the  Illinois 
and  Kentucky  executives. 

General  Smith  himself,  in  explaining,  under  date  of  Sep 
tember  10,  to  the  War  Department  how  it  was  that  Osa- 
watomie  was  sacked  when  there  were  regulars  in  the  vicinity, 
reported  that  Brown  had  had  thirteen  men  killed,  and  bluntly 
added,  "though  there  is  nothing  to  regret  as  to  those  who 
suffered,  yet  the  act  was  a  grossly  unlawful  act,  and  deprives 
those  who  took  part  in  it  of  all  consideration  for  the  future." 
Their  consideration  in  the  near  future  was  already  the  prob 
lem  of  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke;  for  Reid's  force,  after  retiring 


252  JOHN  BROWN 

to  Missouri,  was  again  being  recruited  for  a  fresh  and  final 
attack  on  Lawrence.  Meanwhile,  the  Free  State  men  were 
Cooke's  immediate  care.  Lane,  still  pretending  to  be  "Joe 
Cook,"  had  made  a  weak  effort  to  pursue  Reid,  but  had  fallen 
back  just  as  he  arrived  within  striking  distance.  Then,  on 
learning  that  Marshal  Donaldson  and  two  deputies,  supported 
by  bands  of  bogus  militia,  were  raiding  Free  State  homes 
with  warrants  for  the  owners,  and  burning  their  houses  if 
the  owners  were  absent,  Lane  and  Colonel  Harvey  decided 
to  march  upon  Lecompton,  make  an  armed  demonstration, 
and  demand  the  release  of  the  newest  prisoners  and  of  those 
who  had  been  arrested  in  August  for  complicity  in  the  raid  on 
Franklin. 

After  some  marching  and  counter-marching,  a  force  from 
Lawrence  under  Lane  —  who  had  concealed  himself  in  the 
ranks  —  and  Captain  Samuel  Walker  arrived  at  Lecompton 
on  September  5,  late  in  the  afternoon.  Lieut. -Col.  Cooke 
instantly  ordered  out  his  regiment,  took  up  a  position  be 
tween  Walker's  men  and  the  town,  and  notified  Walker  that 
he  could  fight  that  day  only  with  United  States  troops.63  For 
this  privilege  the  Free  State  men  were  not  thirsting;  but,  with 
the  aid  of  the  veteran  dragoon  colonel,  they  accomplished  the 
release  of  the  prisoners.  Woodson  had  already  decided  to  let 
them  go,  but  his  order,  not  yet  executed,  was  now  put  into 
force.  As  the  Missouri  militia  had  been  dismissed  by  Wood- 
son  that  morning  and  had  almost  all  left,  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke 
greatly  regretted  the  appearance  of  Lane's  men;  he  assured 
them  that  "everything  was  going  in  their  favor,  and  that  it 
apparently  would  be  so  if  they  would  refrain  entirely  from 
reprisals,  or  any  outrages,  return  to  their  occupations,  and 
show  moderation."  64 

This  good  advice  the  Free  State  men  refused  to  take.  On 
returning  to  Lawrence,  they  found  it  full  of  refugees  from 
Leavenworth,  where  William  Phillips,  the  Free  State  lawyer 
who  was  tarred  and  feathered  in  May,  1855,  had  been  deliber 
ately  murdered  on  September  2,  as  a  result  of  the  election  for 
mayor.  From  elsewhere  in  the  Territory  the  law-abiding  and 
the  lawless  were  also  moving  into  Lawrence,  and  to  all  of  them 
the  refugees  from  Leavenworth,  with  their  stories  of  the  shoot 
ing  of  Phillips  in  his  own  house,  of  murders  and  other  out- 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  253 

rages  along  the  roads,  and  the  driving  out  of  hundreds  of 
defenceless  women  and  children,  made  a  strong  appeal.  At  a 
council  of  war  on  September  7,  Lane,  Harvey  and  other  officers 
and  men  of  the  Free  State  forces  decided  to  march  on  Leaven- 
worth.  This  council  was  interrupted  by  the  cheering  on  the 
streets  with  which  John  Brown's  arrival  in  Lawrence  was 
greeted.  Henry  Reisner,  of  Topeka,  an  eye-witness,  remembers 
distinctly  Brown's  impassive  demeanor  and  his  bent  figure 
on  his  gray  horse,  with  his  gun  across  the  saddle  before 
him.  The  uproar  of  cheering  was,  he  says,  "as  great  as  if  the 
President  had  come  to  town,  but  John  Brown  seemed  not 
to  hear  it  and  paid  not  the  slightest  attention."  65  Brown 
brought  with  him  his  sick  adherent,  Luke  F.  Parsons,  and 
was  followed  the  next  day  by  his  son  Jason.  When  asked 
where  he  had  been  since  his  retreat  under  Reid's  fire  across 
the  Marais  des  Cygnes  at  Osawatomie,  he  related  that  he  had 
encamped  on  the  Hauser  farm,  two  and  a  half  miles  from  Osa 
watomie,  for  about  a  week,  at  first  attempting  to  fortify  it. 
But  the  lack  of  men  and  the  illness  of  Parsons  and  others 
prevented.66 

From  there  Jason  Brown  and  his  father  both  went  to  their 
friend  Ottawa  Jones,  on  Ottawa  Creek,  where  they  saw  the 
ruins  of  his  home.  Jones,  who  was  an  educated  Indian,  with 
a  New  England  woman  for  his  wife,  had  befriended  and 
helped  to  feed  John  Brown  and  his  party  while  they  were 
in  the  brush  before  and  after  Black  Jack.  No  other  charge 
could  have  been  brought  against  him  than  friendliness  for 
Free  State  people;  but  a  part  of  Atchison's  army,  guided  by 
Henry  Sherman,*  not  only  destroyed  the  house  the  evening 
of  the  battle  at  Osawatomie,  but  robbed  Mrs.  Jones  of  every 
thing  valuable.  Not  content  with  that,  they  partially  cut 
the  throat  of  a  helpless  man,  Nathaniel  Parker,  who  was  ill 
in  an  upstairs  room,  and  threw  him  over  the  bank  of  the 
creek. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  John  Brown's  indignation  at  this  out 
rage;  but  there  was  nothing  to  be  accomplished  now  south  of 
Lawrence,  and  so,  placing  Parsons  in  a  wagon,  he  had  driven 

*  "Henry  Sherman  led  the  mob  that  burnt  Ottawa  Jones's  house  last  summer 
and  tried  to  kill  Jones."  —  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Osa 
watomie,  March  4,  1857.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis. 


254  JOHN  BROWN 

with  him  to  Lawrence.  After  Brown's  arrival,  the  Sunday 
morning  council  reassembled  and  decided  on  the  movement 
against  Leavenworth.  Most  of  the  men  thereupon  offered  the 
command  to  John  Brown, —  a  responsibility  he  declined  out 
of  deference  to  the  other  leaders;  and  it  was  then  entrusted 
to  Colonel  James  A.  Harvey.  With  two  companies,  Harvey 
marched  on  Easton  and  Alexandria,  in  Leavenworth  County, 
helped  himself  to  pro-slavery  provisions  in  the  now  approved 
fashion,  and  then  captured  a  small  company  of  pro-slavery 
men  on  Slough  Creek,  near  what  is  now  Oskaloosa.  John 
Brown  did  not  accompany  the  command,  which  never  reached 
Leavenworth;  it  was  recalled  by  a  message  from  Lane,  advis 
ing  the  abandonment  of  the  object  because  of  the  arrival  of 
the  new  Governor,  John  W.  Geary.  Almost  simultaneously 
with  Harvey's  movements,  Charles  Whipple,  better  known  as 
Aaron  D.  Stevens,  raided  Osawkee,  a  pro-slavery  settlement, 
taking  eighty  horses  and  nearly  as  many  arms.  Stevens  was 
now  colonel  of  the  "Second  Regiment  Kansas  Volunteers." 
"We  in  Kansas,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother  about  this  time, 
"have  struggled  against  every  species  of  oppression  that  the 
wickedness  of  man  invented  or  the  power  of  the  Devil  ever 
enforced." 67  Carrying  off  eighty  pro-slavery  horses  was  in  his 
eyes  no  wrong;  the  United  States  marshal,  Donaldson,  thought 
differently,  and  seven  days  after  the  raid,  on  September  17, 
he  arrested  twelve  of  Whipple's  men.68  Four  of  them,  includ 
ing  John  H.  Kagi,  who  met  his  end  at  Harper's  Ferry  under 
Brown,  were  committed  by  Judge  Cato  for  highway  robbery, 
—  an  action  they  doubtless  described  as  another  Border  Ruf 
fian  outrage.  "What  in  thunder,"  wrote  Charles  F.  Gilman, 
a  Council  Grove,  Kansas,  leader,  on  hearing  of  some  of  these 
Free  State  raids,  "is  Missouri  doing;  is  she  going  to  let  these 
miserable,  thieving,  lying  Nigger-Stealers  and  horsewhipping 
scamps  take  this  fine  Territory  without  striking  a  blow  for  its 
deliverance?"  69 

September  10  witnessed  the  reunion  of  John  Brown  with 
his  long  imprisoned  son  and  namesake,  the  political  prisoners 
being  then  freed.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  who  had  never  even  been 
indicted,  was  released  on  one  thousand  dollars  bail,  and  hurried 
at  once  to  Lawrence.  "This  evening,"  wrote  the  correspondent 
of  the  New  York  Times,  "large  numbers  assembled  in  front 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  255 

of  General  Lane's  headquarters,  where  they  were  addressed 
by  Judge  Smith,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Nute,  E.  B.  Whitman,  Gov 
ernor  Robinson,  General  Lane  and  John  Brown.  The  meet 
ing  was  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  and  heart-cheering  of 
any  that  has  ever  been  held  in  Kansas."  70  John  Brown,  Jr., 
brought  his  chains,  worn  bright  by  long  use,  with  him;  they 
were  subsequently  forwarded  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher  as  a 
souvenir  of  Bleeding  Kansas.  But  a  better  era  than  the  Ter 
ritory  had  yet  known  was  now  ushered  in  with  the  arrival  of 
John  W.  Geary,  the  new  Governor.  He  reached  Lecompton 
from  Leavenworth  at  about  the  same  time  that  the  Lawrence 
jubilation  over  the  release  of  the  prisoners  was  at  an  end.  The 
next  day  he  issued  a  reassuring  address  to  the  people,  and 
two  excellent  proclamations,  which,  like  his  first  report  of 
September  9  to  Secretary  Marcy,  show  how  clearly  he  grasped 
the  actual  situation.71  In  his  address  he  urged  that  Kansas 
begin  anew;  that  the  past  be  buried  in  oblivion. 

"Men  of  the  North  —  men  of  the  South  —  of  the  East  and  of  the 
West  in  Kansas  —  you,  and  you  alone,"  he  said,  "have  the  remedies 
in  your  own  hands.  Will  you  not  suspend  fratricidal  strife?  Will 
you  not  cease  to  regard  each  other  as  enemies,  and  look  upon  one 
another  as  the  children  of  a  common  mother,  and  come  and  reason 
together?" 

'  The  blame  for  the  situation  he  placed  upon  "  men  outside 
of  the  Territory,  who  .  .  .  have  endeavored  to  stir  up  in 
ternal  strife,  and  to  array  brother  against  brother."  In  his 
first  proclamation  he  ordered  the  complete  disbandment  of 
the  pro-slavery  militia;  in  the  other  he  ordered  the  forma 
tion  of  a  new  body,  which  he  intended  should  be  composed 
of  bona  fide  settlers,  and  be  mustered  by  his  order  into  the 
service  of  the  United  States.  His  policy  was,  first  of  all,  to 
stop  all  lawlessness  and  guerrilla  warfare,  and  in  this  he  was 
soon  successful.  He  was  as  bitter  against  the  pro-slavery 
murderers  of  Leavenworth  as  against  the  Abolition  ma 
rauders  of  the  Whipple  type,  and  became,  as  time  went  on, 
more  and  more  favorable  to  the  Free  State  side,  with  the 
result  that  he  finally  resigned  office  for  the  reason  that  the 
Buchanan  administration,  alienated  by  his  friendliness  to  the 
Northern  side,  withdrew  from  him  its  support. 


256  JOHN  BROWN 

One  of  the  immediate  blessings  of  Governor  Geary's  arrival 
was  the  prompt  disappearance  from  the  scene  of  General 
Lane.  He  left  for  Nebraska  at  once,  with  a  small  band, 
stopping  on  the  way,  however,  to  attack  some  pro-slavery 
raiders.  Finding  them  well  barricaded  in  log-cabins  at 
Hickory  Point,  Lane  sent  back  to  Topeka  for  reinforcements. 
Whipple  and  fifty  men  responded,  but  on  their  arrival,  Lane 
wanted  Captain  Bickerton's  cannon  and  sent  to  Lawrence  for 
them.  Colonel  Harvey,  just  in  from  Slough  Creek,  and  about 
two  hundred  men  responded,  and  arrived  at  Hickory  Point 
on  Sunday  morning,  September  14.  Meanwhile,  General 
Lane  abandoned  the  siege  on  hearing  of  Governor  Geary's 
proclamations.  As  Harvey's  men  came  straight  across  coun 
try,  contrary  to  orders,  they  missed  both  Lane  and  Whipple. 
Nevertheless,  they  at  once  attacked  the  pro-slavery  force, 
and  after  several  hours  of  fighting  captured  it,  killing  one 
and  wounding  four,  and  having  five  wounded  on  their  side.72 
Both  sides  fraternized,  agreed  to  retire  without  plunder,  and 
then  separated.  But  Harvey's  Nemesis  was  at  hand  in  the 
person  of  the  Captain  T.  J.  Wood  already  referred  to,  who 
appeared  on  the  scene  that  night  with  two  troops  of  the  First 
Cavalry  and  a  deputy  marshal,  with  whom  he  had  been  search 
ing  for  Whipple's  band.  Harvey  escaped,  but  Captain  Wood 
returned  to  Lecompton  with  one  hundred  and  one  prisoners 
and  such  of  their  arms  as  he  could  find,  including  the  cannon. 
The  prisoners  were  shown  no  favors,  were  all  kept  in  confine 
ment  for  some  time,  and,  after  enduring  genuine  hardships, 
were  tried  at  the  October  term.  The  majority  were  acquit 
ted;  a  number  received  sentences  at  hard  labor,  with  ball  and 
chain,  for  periods  of  from  five  to  ten  years.  With  the  men 
of  Whipple's  force  and  others,  there  were  now  one  hundred 
and  eighteen  Free  State  men  awaiting  trial  at  one  time, — 
quite  enough  to  serve  as  a  vigorous  deterrent  to  the  other 
Free  Soilers.  John  Brown  might  easily  have  shared  their  fate. 
Those  sentenced  did  not,  however,  remain  in  jail  long;  they 
had  all  escaped  or  been  pardoned  by  the  following  March.  But 
Captain  Wood's  great  haul  was  a  stunning  blow  to  Free  State 
lawlessness. 

Governor  Geary  made  his  first  visit  to  Lawrence  on  Septem 
ber  13.  News  having  been  received  by  him  that  pro-slavery 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  257 

forces  were  threatening  the  town,  he  routed  out  Lieut.-Col. 
Cooke's  troops  in  the  early  morning  of  September  I3.73  Four 
hundred  soldiers  left  at  2.20  A.  M.,  the  governor  going  with 
them,  and  they  arrived  at  Lawrence  at  sunrise  to  find  every 
thing  quiet.  Three  hundred  Missourians  had,  however,  been 
seen  the  day  before,  and  Governor  Geary  had  received  a 
communication  from  General  Heiskell,  announcing  that  in 
response  to  acting  Governor  Woodson  he  was  on  Mission 
Creek  with  eight  hundred  men,  "  ready  for  duty  and  impa 
tient  to  act."  Governor  Geary  found  between  two  and  three 
hundred  men  in  Lawrence  and,  being  well  received,  addressed 
them  earnestly  and  then  conversed  at  length  with  Governor 
Robinson  and  other  leaders,  upon  whom  he  made  a  favora 
ble  impression.  John  Brown  was  not  at  these  gatherings.  By 
nine  o'clock  the  Governor  and  the  troops  left  on  their  return 
to  Lecompton,  the  citizens  giving  three  hearty  cheers  for 
Governor  Geary  and  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke  as  they  rode  away. 
The  very  next  evening,  on  September  14,  Geary  again  ordered 
all  of  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke's  troops  to  Lawrence  in  hot  haste, 
to  prevent  an  impending  collision.74  They  left  at  once  under 
Lieut.-Col.  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  First  Cavalry,  later  the 
distinguished  Confederate  general.  The  next  morning  Lieut.- 
Col.  Cooke  and  Governor  Geary  followed.  This  time  it  had 
been  no  cry  of  wolf.  Atchison,  Reid,  Heiskell,  Stringfellow, 
Whitfield  and  the  other  Missouri  leaders  had  arrived  at 
Franklin,  determined  on  a  final  attempt  to  conquer  Kansas  by 
force  of  arms.  They  had  with  them  no  less  than  twenty-seven 
hundred  men,  some  of  them  completely  uniformed  and  well 
equipped.  Besides  infantry  and  cavalry  there  was  a  six- 
pounder  battery,  —  in  all  a  remarkably  strong  force.  Its  ad 
vance  guard  had  come  in  sight  of  the  men  on  guard  at  Law 
rence  on  the  afternoon  of  the  I4th,  and  after  an  hour's 
shooting  at  long  range,  the  Missourians  had  retired  on  Frank 
lin.  Naturally,  the  people  of  Lawrence  were  in  great  alarm; 
few  were  able  to  sleep  that  night,  remembering  as  they  did 
Atchison's  last  visit  to  their  town.  There  was,  therefore, 
general  rejoicing  when,  on  the  next  morning,  Lieut.-Col. 
Johnston's  troops  were  found  to  be  encamped  on  Mount 
Oread,  the  hill  overlooking  Lawrence,  where  they  had  ar 
rived  during  the  night. 


258  JOHN  BROWN 

The  town  of  Lawrence  was  at  this  time  a  strange  mixture 
of  "stone  houses,  log  cabins,  frame  buildings,  shake  shanties 
and  other  nondescript  erections,"  so  wrote  Colonel  Richard 
J.  Hinton  in  his  journal  on  September  3.™  He  added: 

"Lawrence  presents  a  sad  picture  of  the  evils  this  partizan  war 
fare  is  bringing  over  us.  Buildings  half  finished  or  deserted  are  now 
occupied  as  quarters  for  the  small  army  of  devoted  men  who  are 
fighting  the  battle  of  Freedom.  Trade  is  at  a  standstill.  Work  is 
not  thought  of,  and  the  street  is  full  of  the  eager,  anxious  citizens 
who  cluster  eagerly  around  every  new-comer,  drinking  in  greedily 
the  news,  which  generally  is  exaggerated  by  the  fears  or  imagination 
of  those  who  tell  it.  To  a  stranger,  it  seems  a  wild  confusion,  and 
however  much  they  may  desire,  the  incidents  come  in  so  fast  that 
it  is  morally  impossible  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the  true  condition 
of  things." 

The  defenders  of  this  straggling  town  had  erected  some  for 
tifications,  of  which  they  were  very  proud,  a  stone  "fort"  of 
the  remains  of  the  Free  State  Hotel,  and  four  earthworks 
which  excited  the  risibles  of  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke  and  his  officers, 
— '"ridiculous  attempts  at  defences,"  Cooke  officially  called 
them,  "which  I  could  ride  over."  But  the  day  before  Lieut.- 
CoL  Johnston's  arrival,  these  amateur  fortifications  were 
filled  with  very  earnest  Free  Soil  men,  ready  to  defend  Law 
rence  at  any  cost.  In  the  absence  of  Lane,  the  command  was  as 
much  in  the  hands  of  Major  J.  B.  Abbott  and  Captain  Joseph 
Cracklin,  of  the  "Stubbs,"  as  of  any  one  else.  Some  partisans 
of  John  Brown  have  attempted  to  prove  that  he  was  in  com 
mand,  but  the  evidence  is  conclusive  that  he  declined  Major 
Abbott's  offer  of  the  command  of  a  company,  and  then,  at  his 
request,  went  from  one  of  the  "forts"  to  another, encouraging 
the  men,  urging  them  to  fire  low,  and  giving  them  such  mili 
tary  information  as  was  his,  everywhere,  according  to  Major 
Abbott,  with  excellent  results.76  Other  men  who  were  in  the 
forts  that  day.,  when  Captain  Cracklin  and  his  "Stubbs" 
returned  the  long  range  fire  of  the  Border  Ruffians,  have  tes 
tified  to  the  value  of  Brown's  presence,  and  the  inspiration  he 
gave  them.  To  a  group  of  citizens  in  the  main  street  he  made 
the  following  address,  standing  on  a  dry -goods  box : 

"Gentlemen — It  is  said  there  are  twenty-five  hundred  Mis- 
sourians  down  at  Franklin,  and  that  they  will  be  here  in  two  hours. 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  259 

You  can  see  for  yourselves  the  smoke  they  are  making  by  setting 
fire  to  the  houses  in  that  town.  This  is  probably  the  last  opportu 
nity  you  will  have  of  seeing  a  fight,  so  that  you  had  better  do  your 
best.  If  they  should  come  up  and  attack  us,  don't  yell  and  make 
a  great  noise,  but  remain  perfectly  silent  and  still.  Wait  till  they 
get  within  twenty-five  yards  of  you,  get  a  good  object,  be  sure  you 
see  the  hind  sight  of  your  gun,  then  fire.  A  great  deal  of  powder 
and  lead  and  very  precious  time  is  wasted  by  shooting  too  high. 
You  had  better  aim  at  their  legs  than  at  their  heads.  In  either  case, 
be  sure  of  the  hind  sight  of  your  gun.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I 
myself  have  so  many  times  escaped,  for,  if  all  the  bullets  which  have 
ever  been  aimed  at  me  had  hit  me  I  would  have  been  as  full  of  holes 
as  a  riddle."  " 

Fortunately  for  all  concerned,  the  worth  of  the  forts  and  the 
mettle  of  their  defenders  were  never  tested.  The  aggressive 
and  active  Governor  rode  into  town  with  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke 
at  ten  on  the  morning  of  the  I5th.  They  found  that  Lieut.- 
Col.  Johnston  had  distributed  his  men  in  strong  positions 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  Scarcely  stopping  to  confer 
with  that  officer,  Cooke  and  Geary  pushed  right  on  to  meet 
a  Missourian  mounted  company  then  in  plain  sight,  not 
two  miles  away.  This  company  at  once  constituted  itself  a 
guard  of  honor  for  the  colonel  and  the  Governor.  At  Franklin 
the  pro-slavery  generals  and  chief  officers  were  called  together 
in  a  large  room  "and  very  ably  and  effectively  addressed  by 
Governor  Geary  "  —  so  Cooke  reported.  After  some  inflamma 
tory  speeches  from  the  other  side,  the  veteran  dragoon  himself 
addressed  the  assembly,  urging  them, 

"as  an  old  resident  of  Kansas  and  friend  to  the  Missourians  to  sub 
mit  to  the  patriotic  demand  that  they  should  return,  assuring  them 
of  my  perfect  confidence  in  the  inflexible  justice  of  the  Governor, 
and  that  it  would  become  my  painful  duty  to  sustain  him  at  the 
cannon's  mouth.  Authority  prevailed,  and  the  militia  honorably 
submitted  to  march  off,  to  be  disbanded  at  their  place  of  rendez 
vous." 

It  would  have  been  well,  however,  if  some  of  Cooke's  men 
had  supervised  this  withdrawal.  He  himself  went  back  to 
Lawrence  with  the  Governor  and  calmed  the  greatly  excited 
town,  while  Governor  Geary  again  addressed  the  principal 
men.  They  bivouacked  with  the  troops,  who  slept  under 
arms  after  two  night  marches  with  scant  provisions.  The  next 


26o  JOHN  BROWN 

day,  Cooke  and  the  Governor  returned  to  Lecompton,  following 
the  trail  of  the  notorious  Kickapoo  Rangers.  Some  of  these 
men  had  burned  the  saw-mill  near  Franklin,  "lifted"  horses 
and  cattle,  and  mortally  wounded  David  C.  Buffum,  for  refus 
ing  to  give  up  the  horse  with  which  he  was  ploughing.  Gov 
ernor  Geary  insisted  on  Judge  Cato's  taking  the  dying  man's 
deposition,  and,  to  his  credit  be  it  said,  made  every  effort, 
though  with  little  success,  to  have  the  murderer  punished,  the 
pro-slavery  judges  giving  no  assistance.78 

Thus  ended  the  last  organized  Missourian  invasion  of 
Kansas,  and  for  a  time  thereafter  the  Territory  was  at  peace, 
particularly  as  Lieut. -Cols.  Cooke  and  Johnston  were  active 
in  capturing  armed  Free  Soil  men  coming  in  from  Iowa.  They 
took  prisoners  on  October  9,  for  instance,  two  hundred  and 
twenty- three  armed  immigrants,  headed  by  S.  C.  Pomeroy, 
Colonel  Eldredge  and  others.79  By  November  12  the  Gov 
ernor  of  Kansas  announced  to  General  Smith,  commanding 
the  Department  of  the  West,  that  peace  prevailed  throughout 
the  Territory,  for  which  fact  Governor  Geary  deserves  great 
credit.  In  consideration  of  these  conditions  and  of  the  ap 
proach  of  winter,  all  the  regular  troops,  with  the  exception  of 
two  companies,  returned  to  their  regular  stations.80 

The  disbandment  of  Atchison's  army  was  a  fatal  blow  to  the 
hopes  of  the  Missourians,  and  in  the  South  generally  it  was 
now  beginning  to  be  understood  that  the  battle  for  Kansas 
was  rapidly  being  lost.  Even  before  Atchison's  disbandment, 
an  intelligent  South  Carolinian,  member  of  the  Territorial 
militia,  writing  home  in  a  moment  of  anger  at  the  release  of  the 
Free  State  prisoners  in  the  presence  of  Lane's  and  Harvey's 
men  at  Lecompton,  blurted  out  the  truth  about  the  useless- 
ness  of  those  Southerners  remaining  who  had  come  merely  to 
battle: 

"And  why  should  we  remain?  We  cannot  fight,  and  of  course 
cannot  prevent  our  enemy  from  voting.  The  object  of  our  mission 
will  then,  of  course,  be  defeated,  and  we  had  as  well  return.  Which 
ever  way  the  Kansas  question  be  decided,  't  is  my  opinion,  and  the 
opinion  with  all  with  whom  I  have  conversed,  that  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union  will  be  effected  by  it.  The  Abolitionists  themselves 
say  they  'will  have  Kansas  if  it  splits  the  Union  into  a  thousand 
pieces.'"81 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  261 

Not  even  the  abstention  of  the  Free  State  men  from  the  elec 
tion  of  October  6  for  delegate  to  Congress,  for  members  of 
the  Legislature,  and  on  the  question  of  a  Constitutional  con 
vention,  and  the  consequent  election  of  Whitfield  and  other 
pro-slavery  men,  raised  any  genuine  hopes  in  the  hearts  of  the 
slavery  leaders. 

The  restoration  of  peace,  the  release  of  his  son  and  the 
approach  of  winter  were  the  reasons  why  John  Brown  decided 
to  leave  Kansas  for  the  East  in  search  of  rest  and  additional 
funds  to  carry  on  the  war  for  freedom.  He  had  never  meant 
to  be  a  settler,  and  there  was  nothing  left  to  take  him  or  his 
sons  back  to  Osawatomie.  Their  cabins,  such  as  they  were, 
had  been  destroyed,  and  with  them  all  their  personal  property, 
and  the  books  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  upon  which  he  placed  a 
value  of  three  hundred  dollars.  This  son  thought  that  to  pre 
serve  his  reason  he  must  return  to  a  placid  life  and  quiet 
scenes.82  John  Brown  himself,  suffering  from  the  prevailing 
dysentery  and  chills  and  fever,  was  compelled  to  leave  in  a 
wagon.  He  wrote  to  his  family,  however,  that  he  would 
return  to  Kansas  if  the  troubles  continued.83  With  him  into 
Iowa  went  his  three  sons,  John,  Jason  and  Owen,  while  his 
two  daughters-in-law  and  their  little  sons  took  the  river  route, 
now  open  to  Free  Soil  traffic  of  this  kind. 

On  departing  from  the  Territory,  Brown  left  the  remainder 
of  his  Osawatomie  "volunteer-regular"  company  under  the 
command  of  James  H.  Holmes,  with  instructions  to  "carry 
the  war  into  Africa."  This  Holmes  did  by  raiding  into  Mis 
souri  and  appropriating  some  horses  and  arms  and  other 
property,  for  which  he  was  promptly  and  properly  indicted 
and  long  pursued  by  the  Kansas  and  Missouri  authorities.84 
By  October  10,  John  Brown  and  his  sons  were  safely  at 
Tabor,  after  a  very  narrow  escape  from  the  vigilant  Lieut.- 
Col.  Cooke,  who,  reporting  on  October  7  from  a  "camp  near 
Nebraska  boundary,"  wrote:  "I  arrived  here  yesterday,  at 
noon.  I  just  missed  the  arrest  of  the  notorious  Osawatomie 
outlaw,  Brown.  The  night  before,  having  ascertained  that 
after  dark  he  had  stopped  for  the  night  at  a  house  six  miles 
from  the  camp,  I  sent  a  party  who  found  at  12  o'clock  that 
he  had  gone."85  Evidently,  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke  was  not  aware 
of  Osawatomie  Brown's  presence  at  Lawrence  when  he  was 


262  JOHN  BROWN 

there;  nor  did  he  know  of  the  " outlaw's"  other  narrow  es 
capes  from  capture.  One  of  these  incidents  of  the  return  from 
Kansas  is  thus  related  by  Jason  Brown: 

"We  crossed  the  river  at  Topeka.  We  had  a  four-mule  team, 
and  a  one-horse  covered  wagon.  The  mule  team  was  full  of  arms 
and  ammunition  that  father  was  taking  out  to  Tabor.  I  cannot 
remember  just  now  the  name  of  the  driver,  but  he  was  a  man 
who  was  always  faithful  to  us  and  had  stuck  to  us  right  through. 
In  the  covered,  one-horse  team  was  a  fugitive  slave,  covered  over 
with  hay,  father,  lying  sick,  Owen,  John  and  I.  Owen,  John  and  I 
walked  all  we  could  to  save  the  horse.  At  New  Holton  we  came 
out  on  a  high  prairie  and  saw  the  U.  S.  troops  —  a  large  body  — 
encamped  on  the  stream  below.  When  John  and  I  saw  that,  we 
thought  we  had  fallen  into  a  trap.  'We'll  go  right  down  there,'  said 
father.  'If  we  do,'  said  John,  'we'll  be  captured.  I  for  one  won't 
go.'  'I,  for  another,  won't  go,'  said  I.  So  father  drove  right  on 
down,  and  camped  just  outside  their  pickets,  that  night.  But  before 
he  got  within  two  miles  of  that  camp  of  troops,  John  and  I  left  him, 
—  it  was  dark  —  and  walked  about  six  or  eight  miles  —  I  am  not 
sure  of  the  distance  —  around  —  and  met  father  next  morning, 
about  sunrise  on  the  Nebraska  road.  Owen,  as  always,  stuck  with 
father.  For  a  time  we  and  father  travelled  different  roads  and  did 
not  meet.  We  finally  got  both  wagons  together  at  the  ferry  at 
Nebraska  City  and  camped.  Next  morning  we  crossed  the  river, 
by  rope  ferry,  into  the  southwest  corner  of  Iowa.  When  we  landed 
we  let  the  contraband  out  from  the  hay,  fixed  him  up  the  best  we 
could,  and  travelled  on  to  Tabor.  There  Owen  stopped,  and  the 
negro  there  found  work.  John  and  I  had  the  horse  to  go  to  Iowa 
City  with.  We  rode  and  tied,  to  that  point,  where  the  railway 
began."86 

Before  leaving  Lawrence,  John  Brown  received  two  letters 
from  Charles  Robinson,  both  of  them  of  special  interest  be 
cause  of  the  Governor's  subsequent  attacks  upon  Brown  in  the 
never-ending  and  extremely  bitter  controversy  as  to  whether 
Brown  or  Lane  or  Robinson  was  the  real  saviour  of  Kansas : 

LAWRENCE,  Sept.  15,  1856. 

CAPT.  JOHN  BROWN:  MY  DEAR  SIR:  —  I  take  this  opportunity 
to  express  to  you  my  sincere  gratification  that  the  late  report  that 
you  were  among  the  killed  at  the  battle  of  Osawatomie  is  incorrect. 

Your  course,  so  far  as  I  have  been  informed,  has  been  such  as  to 
merit  the  highest  praise  from  every  patriot,  and  I  cheerfully  accord 
to  you  my  heartfelt  thanks  for  your  prompt,  efficient  and  timely 
action  against  the  invaders  of  our  rights  and  the  murderers  of  our 
citizens.  History  will  give  your  name  a  proud  place  on  her  pages, 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  263 

and  posterity  will  pay  homage  to  your  heroism  in  the  cause  of  God 
and  Humanity. 

Trusting  that  you  will  conclude  to  remain  in  Kansas  and  serve 
during  the  war  the  cause  you  have  done  so  much  to  sustain,  and 
with  earnest  prayers  for  your  health  and  protection  from  the  shafts 
of  Death  that  so  thickly  beset  your  path,  I  subscribe  myself, 
Very  respectfully 

Your  Ob't  Servant 

C.  ROBINSON.87 

The  other  letter,  dated  earlier,  reads  as  follows: 

LAWRENCE,  Sept  13/56 
CAPT.  BROWN 
DEAR  SIR 

Gov  Geary  has  been  here  and  talks  very  well.  He  promises  to 
protect  us,  etc.,  etc.  There  will  be  no  attempt  to  arrest  anyone  for 
a  few  days,  and  I  think  no  attempt  to  arrest  you  is  contemplated 
by  him.  He  talks  of  letting  the  past  be  forgotten  so  far  as  may  be 
and  of  commencing  anew. 

If  convenient  can  you  not  come  into  town  and  see  us.  I  will  then 
tell  you  all  that  the  Gov.  said  and  talk  of  some  other  matters. 
Very  respectfully 

C.  ROBINSON  M 

On  the  back  of  this  note  is  a  pencilled  memorandum  of 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  his  father,  which  includes  among  other 
advice  these  words:  " Don't  go  into  that  secret  military 
refugee  plan  talked  of  by  Robinson,  I  beg  of  you."  Over  this 
letter  and  sentence  there  was  a  vitriolic  controversy  between 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Governor  Robinson  in  1883  and  1884, 
the  former  insisting  that  at  the  private  meeting  requested,  the 
Governor  asked  Brown  to  undertake  the  kidnapping  of  the 
leading  pro-slavery  generals,  and  the  doing  away  of  others  in 
Pottawatomie  fashion,  and  that  his  father  replied:  " If  you 
know  of  any  job  of  that  sort  that  needs  to  be  done,  I  advise 
you  to  do  it  yourself."  89  No  one  else  has  publicly  accused 
Governor  Robinson  of  sinking  quite  to  the  depths  of  urging 
deliberate  assassination,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  he  in 
dignantly  denied  the  charge.  Those  who  would  decide  where 
the  truth  lies  must  make  up  their  minds  which  man's  word 
was  the  weightier. 

Free  from  any  other  blood-stain,  John  Brown  quitted  the 
ravaged  Territory.  If  he  had  deliberately  committed  the 


264  JOHN  BROWN 

Pottawatomie  murders  in  order  to  embroil  Kansans  and  Mis- 
sourians,  he  had  every  reason  to  view  with  satisfaction  the 
results  of  his  bloody  deed.  The  carnival  of  crime  and  the  civil 
war  inaugurated  by  the  sacking  of  Lawrence  and  the  midnight 
assassinations  in  the  hitherto  peaceful  region  of  Osawatomie, 
had  brought  eastern  Kansas  to  the  lowest  state  of  her  for 
tunes.  Governor  Geary  accurately  portrayed  it  in  his  farewell 
to  the  people  of  Kansas  on  March  12  of  the  next  year: 

"I  reached  Kansas  and  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  my  official 
duties  in  the  most  gloomy  hour  of  her  history.  Desolation  and  ruin 
reigned  on  every  hand ;  homes  and  firesides  were  deserted ;  the  smoke 
of  burning  dwellings  darkened  the  atmosphere;  women  and  chil 
dren,  driven  from  their  habitations,  wandered  over  the  prairies  and 
among  the  woodland,  or  sought  refuge  and  protection  even  among 
the  Indian  tribes;  the  highways  were  infested  with  numerous  preda 
tory  bands,  and  the  towns  were  fortified  and  garrisoned  by  armies 
of  conflicting  partisans,  each  excited  almost  to  frenzy,  and  deter 
mined  upon  mutual  extermination.  Such  was,  without  exaggera 
tion,  the  condition  of  the  Territory  at  the  period  of  my  arrival."90 

Between  November  I,  1855,  and  December  I,  1856,  about 
two  hundred  people  are  known  to  have  lost  their  lives  in  the 
anarchical  conditions  that  prevailed,  and  the  property  loss  in 
this  period  is  officially  set  down  at  not  less  than  two  millions 
of  dollars,  one  half  of  which  was  sustained  by  bona  fide  settlers, 
the  larger  portion  falling  on  the  Free  State  emigrants.91  How 
ever  superior  in  character  and  intelligence  and  industry  the 
latter  indubitably  were  in  the  beginning,  there  was  but  little 
to  choose  between  the  Border  Ruffians  and  the  Kansas  Ruf 
fians  in  midsummer  of  1856.  The  Whipples  and  Harveys  and 
Browns  plundered  and  robbed  as  freely  on  one  side  as  did  the 
Martin  Whites,  the  Reids  and  the  Tituses  on  the  other,  and 
there  was  not  the  slightest  difference  in  their  methods.  Both 
sides  respected  women;  but  in  remorseless  killing  of  individ 
uals,  the  Border  Ruffians  were  guilty  of  a  savagery  that  would 
place  them  far  below  the  scale  of  the  Free  Soil  men,  were  it  not 
for  the  massacre  on  the  Pottawatomie.  If  the  Eastern  press 
discreetly  refused  to  believe  a  single  Free  State  outrage,  or  to 
portray  raids  like  those  on  Franklin  in  their  true  colors,  the 
pro-slavery  partisans  met  every  charge  with  the  allegation 
that  it  was  an  "Abolition  lie."  In  the  eyes  of  New  England, 


THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD  265 

Reid's  taking  the  lives  of  Free  Soil  men  at  Osawatomie  was 
''butchery,"  while  the  exterminating  of  Border  Ruffians  was 
merely  "  killing,"  —  as  John  Brown  phrased  these  incidents  in 
his  story  of  that  fight.  Probably  no  one  in  the  East  in  Octo 
ber,  1856,  realized  the  utter  demoralization  of  the  Free  State 
men,  or  the  violence  and  lawlessness  of  their  methods.  For  this 
ignorance  the  excitement  of  the  Presidential  campaign,  which 
resulted  in  Fremont's  defeat,  may  have  been  in  part  respon 
sible.  To  many  of  the  radical  Abolitionists  in  the  East,  the 
bloodshed  in  Kansas  was  a  plain  indication  that  slavery  could 
hereafter  be  ended  only  by  the  bayonet.92 

It  is,  of  course,  undeniable  that  the  Border  Ruffian  outrages 
in  Kansas  enormously  aroused  the  North  on  the  slavery  ques 
tion  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  tremendous  outburst  of 
excitement  or  anger  over  the  Harper's  Ferry  raid.  But  it  is 
idle  to  assert  that  Kansas  would  never  have  been  free,  had  it 
not  weltered  in  blood  in  1856;  if  the  Sharp's  rifle  policy  had 
not  been  followed.  Climate  and  soil  fought  in  Kansas  on  the 
side  of  the  Free  State  men.  The  Southerners  themselves  com 
plained  that  their  settlers  who  did  reach  Kansas  were  inocu 
lated  with  the  virus  of  liberty,  became  Free  Soilers  and  often 
freed  their  slaves.98  The  familiar  slave  crops  never  could  have 
been  raised  in  Kansas  with  its  bleak  winters.  Moreover,  the 
South  was  never  a  colonizing  section ;  the  history  of  the  set 
tlement  of  our  Western  communities  proves  this,  if  the  fate 
of  Buford's  band  and  its  inability  to  settle  down  anywhere 
did  not.  The  final  failure  of  the  slave-power  to  hold  the  great 
advantage  it  had  in  Kansas  in  1855  was  not  due  to  fear  of 
weapons,  but  to  inability  to  place  farmers  and  pioneers  on  the 
battle-ground.  The  wave  of  emigrants  from  the  East  was 
from  the  beginning  certain  to  roll  over  the  Kansas  plains,  even 
if  it  had  not  been  expedited  by  the  Emigrant  Aid  Societies,  to 
whom  due  credit  for  hastening  the  turning  of  the  tide  must  be 
given. 

Equally  certain  is  it  that  no  one  man  decided  the  fate  of 
Kansas.  In  this  narrative  no  effort  has  been  made  to  estimate 
the  relative  values  to  Kansas  of  Eli  Thayer,  the  founder  of  the 
Emigrant  Aid  movement,  or  of  Charles  Robinson,  or  of  James 
H.  Lane,  or  of  Brown.  It  would  be  an  invidious  undertaking; 
to  enter  into  the  bitter  disputes  of  the  partisan  followers  of 


266  JOHN  BROWN 

Robinson,  Lane  and  Brown  is  a  task  which  no  historian 
would  attempt  unless  compelled  by  his  theme  to  do  so.  Their 
adulators  have  forgotten  that  properly  to  understand  and  esti 
mate  the  forces  brought  into  play  in  Kansas,  one  must  fairly 
go  back  to  the  foundation  of  our  government.  The  irrepressi 
ble  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery  would  have  gone  on 
and  come  to  a  head  had  Kansas  never  been  thrown  open  to 
settlement,  and  that  Territory  must  have  been  free  had  there 
been  no  Lane  and  no  Robinson  and  no  John  Brown.  The 
great  nation-stirring  movement  of  which  they  were  a  part 
can  best  be  likened  to  a  glacier;  for  decades  it  moved  imper 
ceptibly;  suddenly  the  people  it  overshadowed  awoke  to  the 
fact  that  their  very  existence  was  threatened  by  this  mon 
strous  mass  of  prejudice  and  wrong  and  crime. 
/  Of  John  Brown,  as  he  left  Kansas  after  just  a  year  of 
activity,  with  the  most  important  period  of  his  service  to  the 
Territory  behind  him,  it  may  truthfully  be  said  that  his  deeds, 
good  and  evil,  had  appealed  strongly  to  the  imagination  of 
all  who  read  of  him  sympathetically.  Like  a  relentless  High 
land  chieftain  of  old,  he  appeared  to  personify  indomitable, 
unswerving  resistance  to  the  forces  of  slavery.  To  those  Free 
Soilers  who  believed  in  the  argumentative  methods  of  the  Old 
Testament,  his  name  was  henceforth  one  to  conjure  with. 
Not  in  his  methods,  however,  but  in  his  uncompromising 
hostility  to  that  human  bondage  for  which  he  was  ready  to 
sacrifice  his  life,  lies  his  undoubted  claim  to  a  place  in  the 
history  of  Kansas  and  of  the  Nation. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS 

AT  Tabor,  Iowa,  John  Brown,  weak  and  ill,  met  with  a  hearty 
reception  at  the  hands  of  that  colony  of  Ohioans.  Under  the 
leadership  of  George  B.  Gas  ton,  for  four  years  a  missionary 
among  the  Pawnee  Indians,  and  the  Rev.  John  Todd,  there 
had  been  founded  at  Tabor,  in  1848,  a  community  which  was 
intended  to  be  another  Oberlin.1  Most  of  its  settlers  came 
from  that  earnestly  religious  and  bravely  anti-slavery  town. 
They  were  steeped  in  its  Abolition  views  and  in  sympathy 
with  its  protests  against  hyper-Calvinism,  —  in  short,  brought 
with  them  the  Oberlin  devotion  to  truth  and  liberty.  It  was 
the  most  congenial  soil  upon  which  John  Brown  had  set  foot 
since  his  departure  from  Ohio.  Here  all  men  and  women 
thought  his  own  thoughts  and  spoke  his  own  words.  Though 
it  was  then  but  a  straggling  prairie  town  of  twenty-five  houses, 
with  little  of  the  present  beauty  of  its  wide  and  richly  shaded 
streets,  Tabor  was  ever  an  attractive  haven  for  John  Brown 
and  his  sons.  On  the  overland  route  into  Kansas,  it  was  far 
enough  from  the  Territory  to  be  free  from  disorder,  and  the 
arriving  and  departing  emigrant  trains  gave  it  an  especial 
interest  and  kept  it  in  touch  with  the  storm-centre  of  the 
nation.  News  from  Kansas  came  regularly,  while  the  scattered 
pro-slavery  sympathizers  in  the  neighborhood,  who  acted  as 
spies  for  the  Missourians,  or  those  who  passed  through  en 
route  to  the  Territory,  added  zest  to  the  town's  life,  particu 
larly  when  the  Southern  visitors  were  in  search  of  the  slaves 
who  passed  on  to  safety  and  freedom  by  the  underground 
route.  This  long  counted  Tabor  one  of  its  important  far  West 
ern  stations. 

Mrs.  Gaston  has  left  the  following  account  of  conditions 
in  Tabor  during  the  time  of  John  Brown's  visit: 

"That  summer  and  autumn  our  houses,  before  too  full,  were 
much  overfilled,  and  our  comforts  shared  with  those  passing  to  and 
from  Kansas  to  secure  it  to  Freedom.  When  houses  would  hold  no 


268  JOHN  BROWN 

more,  woodsheds  were  temporized  for  bedrooms,  where  the  sick 
and  dying  were  cared  for.  Barns  also  were  fixed  for  sleeping  rooms. 
Every  place  where  a  bed  could  be  put  or  a  blanket  thrown  down 
was  at  once  so  occupied.  There  were  comers  and  goers  all  times  of 
day  or  night  —  meals  at  all  hours  — many  free  hotels,  perhaps  en 
tertaining  angels  unawares.  After  battles  they  were  here  for  rest 
—  before  for  preparation.  General  Lane  once  stayed  three  weeks 
secretly  while  it  was  reported  abroad  that  he  was  back  in  Indiana 
for  recruits  and  supplies,  which  came  ere  long,  consisting  of  all  kinds 
of  provisions,  Sharps  rifles,  powder* and  lead.  A  cannon  packed  in 
corn  made  its  way  through  the  enemy's  lines,  and  ammunition  of 
all  kinds  in  clothing  and  kitchen  furniture,  etc.,  etc.  Our  cellars 
contained  barrels  of  powder  and  boxes  of  rifles.  Often  our  chairs, 
tables,  beds  and  such  places  were  covered  with  what  weapons  every 
one  carried  about  him,  so  that  if  one  needed  and  got  time  to  rest  a 
little  in  the  day  time,  we  had  to  remove  the  Kansas  furniture,  or 
rest  with  loaded  revolvers,  cartridge  boxes  and  bowie  knives  piled 
around  them,  and  boxes  of  swords  under  the  bed."2 

Here  John  Brown  stayed  about  a  week  after  his  arrival 
from  Kansas.  Here  he  stored  the  arms  he  had  brought  with 
him,  and  this  place  he  chose  as  the  coming  headquarters  of  the 
band  of  one  hundred  "volunteer-regulars"  for  whom  he  now 
planned  to  raise  funds  in  the  East  to  the  amount  of  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  and  here  actual  training  for  war-service 
against  the  forces  of  slavery  was  soon  to  begin.  For  this  was 
the  plan  which  John  Brown's  brain  had  now  formulated.  The 
peace  of  Geary  he  did  not  value;  indeed,  he  unjustly  de 
nounced  the  Governor  at  this  period  as  having  been  unpardon- 
ably  slow  in  reaching  Lawrence  with  the  Federal  troops,  when 
that  town  was  menaced  by  Atchison  and  Reid.  He  wanted  a 
secret  unpaid  force  that  would  subsist  as  best  it  might  between 
periods  of  activity,  but  be  ready  with  rifle,  pistol  and  sword  to 
come  together  to  repel  invasion,  or  even  to  undertake  a  coun 
ter-invasion.  If  he  rightly  judged  that  hostilities  between  the 
two  contending  parties  in  Kansas  were  not  yet  over,  he  over 
estimated  the  likelihood  of  a  fresh  outbreak  when  the  spring 
should  come  again.  By  then  he  hoped  to  return  to  Kansas 
with  plenty  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  recruit  the  men  he 
wanted. 

After  his  brief  stay  for  recuperation,  John  Brown  set  out 
over  the  overland  route  to  Chicago  by  way  of  Iowa  City  and 
Springdale,  arriving  there  about  the  22d  or  23d  of  October 


MAIN  STREET  OF  TABOR,  IOWA 


THE  PUBLIC  SQUARE  AT  TABOR 


NEW   FRIENDS   FOR  OLD  VISIONS          269 

with  his  sons,  Jason  and  John  Brown,  Jr.,  who  had  preceded 
him  from  Tabor.  The  father  reported  at  once  at  the  offices  of 
the  National  Kansas  Committee,  where  his  presence  aroused 
great  interest.  He  was  soon  asked  to  accompany  the  train 
of  "freight"  for  the  Free  State  cause  then  being  conducted 
through  Iowa  to  Kansas  by  Dr.  J.  P.  Root,  in  order  to  advise 
that  leader. 

"Capt.  Brown,"  wrote  General  J.  D.  Webster  to  Dr.  Root 
on  October  25,  "says  the  immediate  introduction  of  the  sup 
plies  is  not  of  much  consequence  compared  to  the  danger  of 
losing  them."  On  the  next  day,  Horace  WThite,  then  assistant 
secretary  of  the  National  Kansas  Committee,  later  editor  of 
the  Chicago  Tribune  and  New  York  Evening  Post,  wrote  to 
him  this  note:3 

OFFICE  NATIONAL  KANSAS  COMMITTEE, 

CHICAGO,  Oct.  26,  1856. 

CAPTAIN  BROWN,  —  We  expect  Mr.  Arny,  our  General  Agent 
just  from  Kansas  to  be  in  tomorrow  morning.  He  has  been  in  the 
territory  particularly  to  ascertain  the  condition  of  certain  affairs 
for  our  information.  I  know  he  will  very  much  regret  not  having 
seen  you.  If  it  is  not  absolutely  essential  for  you  to  go  on  tonight, 
I  would  recommend  you  to  wait  &  see  him.  I  shall  confer  with 
Col.  Dickey  on  this  point. 

Rev.  Theodore  Parker  of  Boston  is  at  the  Briggs  House,  &  wishes 
very  much  to  see  you. 

Yours  truly, 

HORACE  WHITE,  Assist.  Sec.,  etc. 

If  you  wish  one  or  two  of  those  rifles,  please  call  at  our  office 
between  3  &  5  this  afternoon,  or  between  7  &  8  this  evening. 

W. 

It  is  the  testimony  of  Salmon  Brown  that  his  father  did 
turn  back  and  return  to  Tabor  in  the  wake  of  the  Root  train. 
This  had  a  special  interest  for  him,  because  with  it  went  his 
two  sons  Salmon  and  Watson,  who  had  received,  when  digging 
potatoes  at  North  Elba,  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Osawatomie, 
and  of  a  speech  by  Martin  White  boasting  of  his  having  killed 
Frederick  Brown.  The  next  morning  they  were  on  their  way 
back  to  Kansas  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  killing  White, 
Salmon  going  to  the  Territory  for  the  second  time,  Watson 
for  the  first.4  Assisted  by  Gerrit  Smith,  Frederick  Douglass 
and  other  friends  (to  whom  naturally  they  did  not  reveal  their 


270  JOHN  BROWN 

exact  errand),  they  reached  Chicago,  where  Mr.  White  gave 
them  each  a  Sharp's  rifle,  and  then  joined  Dr.  Root's  party. 
With  it  they  unwittingly  passed  their  father  in  Iowa,  as  he 
was  bound  to  Chicago.  At  St.  Charles,  Iowa,  Watson  wrote  on 
October  30  to  North  Elba  that  the  train  travelled  very  slowly, 
and  that  he  had  heard  a  report  that  his  father  had  gone  East.5 
John  Brown,  on  learning  in  Chicago  of  their  whereabouts,  at 
once  communicated  with  his  son  Owen,  who  had  remained  at 
Tabor,  urging  him  to  stop  the  younger  sons  there  until  he  could 
arrive.  Owen  delivered  the  message,  and  Watson  awaited  his 
father's  arrival,  Salmon  pushing  on  to  carry  out  his  plan. 
When  he  reached  Topeka,  he  heard  and  credited  a  false  story 
of  Martin  White's  death,  and  returned  to  his  Uncle  Jeremiah 
Brown's  at  Hudson,  Ohio,  by  the  aid  of  a  cavalry  horse  bought 
from  the  hanger-on  of  a  camp  of  the  natural  enemies  of  the 
Brown  family,  —  some  regular  cavalry, — without,  however, 
a  perfect  title  to  the  mount. 

At  Tabor,  Dr.  Root's  train  deposited  its  arms  and  gave  up 
the  attempt  to  enter  Kansas.  Curiously  enough,  there  were 
in  its  wagons  the  two  hundred  rifles  which  John  Brown  and 
his  men  subsequently  took  to  Harper's  Ferry.  The  Rev.  John 
Todd's  cellar  was  filled  with  boxes  of  clothing,  ammunition, 
these  two  hundred  rifles,  sabres  and  a  brass  cannon,  for  the 
whole  of  that  winter  of  1856-57.  With  his  son  Watson,  John 
Brown  soon  left  Tabor.  They  "rode  and  tied  across  Iowa  on 
a  big  mule  and  got  to  Ohio  two  weeks  after  I  did,"  writes 
Salmon  Brown,  whose  cavalry  steed  had  carried  him  eastward 
in  phenomenally  short  time.  John  Brown  stopped  again  in 
Chicago,  early  in  December,  arriving  in  Ohio  after  an  absence 
of  over  fifteen  months.*  He  was  not  content,  however,  to  lin 
ger  with  his  relatives  in  Hudson;  he  pushed  on  to  Albany, 
Rochester  and  Peterboro. 

*  It  was  probably  at  this  time  that  John  Brown,  visiting  his  half-sister,  Mrs. 
S.  C.  Davis,  in  Graf  ton,  Ohio,  made  a  characteristic  reply  to  Mrs.  Davis 's  ques 
tion:  "John,  is  n't  it  dreadful  that  Fre*mont  should  have  been  defeated  and  such 
a  man  as  Buchanan  put  into  office!" 

"Well,  truly,"  answered  Brown,  "as  I  look  at  it  now,  I  see  that  it  was  the  right 
thing.  If  Fremont  had  been  elected,  the  people  would  have  settled  right  down 
and  made  no  further  effort.  Now  they  know  they  must  work  if  they  want  to  save 
a  free  State."  —  Statement  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Kalamazoo,  Mich.,  November 
24,  1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 


NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS          271 

But  his  overweening  desire  to  obtain  men,  weapons  and 
supplies  for  Kansas  left  him  no  time  for  his  Adirondack  home. 
Just  after  the  New  Year  he  arrived  in  Boston,  and  there  began 
a  series  of  friendships  which  became  of  the  greatest  value 
to  him  during  the  remainder  of  his  life.  Here  he  met  for  the 
first  time  Frank  B.  Sanborn,  ever  afterward  his  most  ardent 
Massachusetts  friend  and  defender,  who  was  then  acting  as 
a  secretary  of  the  Massachusetts  State  Kansas  Committee. 
Sanborn,  then  but  a  year  and  a  half  out  of  Harvard,  was 
on  fire  for  the  anti-slavery  cause,  and  ready  to  worship  any 
of  its  militant  leaders.  John  Brown,  fresh  from  the  Kansas 
battlefields,  made  a  deep  impression  upon  this  young  Con 
cord  school-master,  who  had  turned  over  his  scholars  to  a 
Harvard  student  while  he  worked  for  Kansas.  On  January  5, 
Sanborn  thus  recorded  his  first  impressions  of  his  life's  hero  to 
Mr.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  the  fighting  young  Uni 
tarian  parson  of  Worcester: 

'"Old  Brown'  of  Kansas  is  now  in  Boston,  with  one  of  his  sons, 
working  for  an  object  in  which  you  will  heartily  sympathize — 
raising  and  arming  a  company  of  men  for  the  future  protection  of 
Kansas.  He  wishes  to  raise  $30,000  to  arm  and  equip  a  company 
such  as  he  thinks  he  can  raise  this  present  winter,  but  he  will,  as 
I  understand  him,  take  what  money  he  can  raise  and  use  it  as  far 
as  it  will  go.  Can  you  not  come  to  Boston  tomorrow  or  next  day 
and  see  Capt.  Brown?  If  not,  please  indicate  when  you  will  be  in 
Worcester,  so  he  can  see  you.  I  like  the  man  from  what  I  have  seen 
—  and  his  deeds  ought  to  bear  witness  for  him."6 

To  Mr.  Sanborn,  John  Brown  brought  a  personal  letter 
of  introduction  from  a  relative  in  Springfield,  Massachu 
setts,  and  a  general  one  from  Governor  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of 
Ohio,  based  on  Charles  Robinson's  letter  of  commendation, 
and  dated  December  20,  1856.*  At  once  Mr.  Sanborn  took 
him  to  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe  and  Theodore  Parker.  Patrick 
Tracy  Jackson,  the  treasurer  of  the  Massachusetts  State 
Kansas  Committee,  George  L.  Stearns,  Amos  A.  Lawrence, 
Dr.  Samuel  Cabot,  Jr.,  Judge  Thomas  Russell,  Wendell 
Phillips  and  William  Lloyd  Garrison  were  some  of  the  other 
friends  Brown  made.  Mr.  Garrison  he  met  one  Sunday 
evening  in  January  at  Theodore  Parker's.  They  were  at  oppo- 

•  Governor  Chase  gave  Brown  twenty-five  dollars  on  this  occasion.      -  :\ 


272  JOHN  BROWN 

site  poles  of  thought  in  their  methods  of  dealing  with  slavery. 
Mr.  Garrison,  a  non-resistant,  could  conceive  no  situation  in 
which  it  was  right  to  take  up  arms,  —  " carnal  weapons,"  as 
he  often  called  them,  —  while  Brown  was  all  impatience  with 
men  who  only  talked  and  would  not  shoot.  The  debate  lasted 
until  late  in  the  evening.  Mr.  Garrison,  it  has  been  recorded, 

"saw  in  the  famous  Kansas  chieftain  a  tall,  spare,  farmer-like  man, 
with  head  disproportionately  small,  and  that  inflexible  mouth  which 
as  yet  no  beard  concealed.  They  discussed  peace  and  nonresist- 
ance  together,  Brown  quoting  the  Old  Testament  against  Gar 
rison's  citations  from  the  New,  and  Parker  from  time  to  time  in 
jecting  a  bit  of  Lexington  into  the  controversy,  which  attracted 
a  small  group  of  interested  listeners."7 

Mr.  Parker  soon  became  one  of  five  men  who  grouped 
themselves  as  an  informal  committee  to  aid  Brown  in  what 
ever  attacks  he  might  make  on  slavery,  though  Mr.  Parker 
was  not  certain  that  Brown's  general  plan  for  attacking  the 
hated  institution  would  be  successful.  "I  doubt,"  he  said, 
"whether  things  of  this  kind  will  succeed.  But  we  shall  make 
a  great  many  failures  before  we  discover  the  right  way  of  get 
ting  at  it.  This  may  as  well  be  one  of  them." 8  When  the  final 
blow  was  struck,  no  one  wrote  more  vigorously  in  Brown's 
support  than  did  Theodore  Parker. 

George  Luther  Stearns,  a  successful  merchant  of  Boston 
and  an  exceptionally  public-spirited  man,  became,  as  he  him 
self  put  it,  "strongly  impressed"  with  Brown's  "sagacity, 
courage,  and  strong  integrity,"  and  thereafter  practically  put 
his  purse  at  Brown's  disposal.9  He  and  Gerrit  Smith  gave  to 
him  more  liberally  than  any  one  else,  as  will  hereafter  appear, 
and  their  homes  were  always  open  to  him.  It  was  on  Sunday, 
January  n,  1857,  that  Brown  first  entered  the  hospitable 
Stearns  mansion,  entertaining  the  family  at  table  with  an 
account  of  Black  Jack,  grimly  humorous.10  To  Mr.  Stearns 
he  gave  his  views  of  the  Kansas  chieftains,  Pomeroy,  Robin 
son,  etc.,  exalting  Martin  F.  Conway  as  the  best  of  the  politi 
cal  leaders,  but  characterizing  him  as  lacking  in  force.  The 
memory  of  that  dinner  is  still  kept  green  in  the  Stearns 
family;  its  immediate  effect  was  a  determination  on  Mr. 
Stearns's  part  to  do  everything  in  his  power  to  get  Brown  the 
arms  and  money  he  desired. 


NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS         273 

Amos  A.  Lawrence,  who  had  known  Brown  when  he  was 
in  Springfield  in  the  wool  business,  records  in  his  diary  on 
January  7:  "Captain  Brown,  the  old  partisan  hero  of  Kan 
sas  warfare,  came  to  see  me.  I  had  a  long  talk  with  him.  He  is  ^ 
a  calm,  temperate  and  pious  man,  but  when  roused  he  is  a 
dreadful  foe.  He  appears  about  sixty  years  old."  u  In  view 
of  Mr.  Lawrence's  complete  change  of  opinion  in  regard  to 
Brown  in  later  years,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  he  about  this 
time  characterized  Brown  as  the  "Miles  Standish  of  Kansas." 

"His  severe  simplicity  of  habits,"  Mr.  Lawrence  continued,  "his 
determined  energy,  his  heroic  courage  in  the  time  of  trial,  all  based 
on  a  deep  religious  faith,  make  him  a  true  representative  of  the 
Puritanic  warrior.  I  knew  him  before  he  went  to  Kansas  and  have 
known  more  of  him  since,  and  should  esteem  the  loss  of  his  service, 
from  poverty,  or  any  other  cause,  almost  irreparable."12 

This  opinion  Mr.  Lawrence  was  also  willing  to  back  with  his 
money.  He  offered  to  be 

"one  of  ten,  or  a  smaller  number,  to  pay  a  thousand  dollars  per 
annum  till  the  admission  of  Kansas  into  the  Union,  for  the  purpose 
of  supporting  John  Brown's  family  and  keeping  the  proposed  com 
pany  in  the  field." 

This  record  of  the  impression  made  by  John  Brown  upon 
those  whom  he  met  about  this  time  would  not  be  complete 
without  a  quotation  from  Henry  D.  Thoreau,  in  whose  house 
at  Concord  Brown  saw,  in  March,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
It  was  eminently  characteristic  of  the  strength  of  Brown's 
personality,  and  of  the  vigor  of  his  mentality,  that  he  should 
have  made  both  of  these  men  his  devoted  adherents.  Like 
Theodore  Parker's,  their  support  of  him  became  of  enormous 
value  in  1859,  in  shaping  the  judgment  of  the  time  upon  John 
Brown.  In  his  eloquent  'Plea  for  Captain  John  Brown,' 
Thoreau  thus  describes  Brown  as  he  found  him  in  1857: 13 

"A  man  of  rare  common-sense  and  directness  of  speech,  as  of  ac 
tion;  a  transcendentalist  above  all,  a  man  of  ideas  and  principles, — • 
that  was  what  distinguished  him.  Not  yielding  to  a  whim  or  tran 
sient  impulse,  but  carrying  out  the  purpose  of  a  life.  I  noticed  that 
he  did  not  overstate  anything,  but  spoke  within  bounds.  I  remem 
ber,  particularly,  how,  in  his  speech  here,  he  referred  to  what  his 
family  had  suffered  in  Kansas,  without  ever  giving  the  least  vent  to 


274  J°HN  BROWN 

his  pent-up  fire.  It  was  a  volcano  with  an  ordinary  chimney-flue. 
Also,  referring  to  the  deeds  of  certain  Border  Ruffians,  he  said, 
rapidly  paring  away  his  speech,  like  an  experienced  soldier,  keep 
ing  a  reserve  of  force  and  meaning,  'They  had  a  perfect  right  to 
be  hung.'  He  was  not  in  the  least  a  rhetorician,  was  not  talking  to 
Buncombe  or  his  constituents  anywhere,  had  no  need  to  invent 
anything,  but  to  tell  the  simple  truth,  and  communicate  his  own 
resolution;  therefore  he  appeared  incomparably  strong,  and  elo 
quence  in  Congress  and  elsewhere  seemed  to  me  at  a  discount.  It 
was  like  the  speeches  of  Cromwell  compared  with  those  of  an  ordi 
nary  king." 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  in  this  connection,  that  very  little 
was  known  in  Boston  at  this  time  about  the  Pottawatomie 
murders,  and  still  less  about  John  Brown's  connection  with 
them.  Frank  Preston  Stearns,  the  biographer  of  his  father, 
states  that  the  latter  never  knew  of  John  Brown's  connection 
with  the  crime,14  and  it  may  well  be  that  Theodore  Parker 
and  others  passed  off  the  scene  without  a  full  realization  of 
the  connection  between  the  Harper's  Ferry  leader  and  the 
tragedy  of  May  24,  1856.  To  none  of  these  new-found  friends 
did  Brown  at  this  period  communicate  his  Virginia  plan. 
He  kept  it  to  himself  a  year  longer;  but  he  did  not  conceal 
from  some  of  them  his  desire  to  defend  Kansas  by  raiding 
in  Missouri,  or  by  attacking  slavery  at  some  other  vulnerable 
point.  With  the  general  idea  they  were,  like  Theodore  Parker, 
in  accord,  but  not  sufficiently  interested  to  ask  for  details,  so 
abounding  was  the  faith  in  himself  which  the  mere  appear 
ance  of  the  man  created. 

John  Brown's  first  practical  encouragement  came  on 
January  7,  when  the  Massachusetts  State  Kansas  Committee, 
of  which  Stearns  was  chairman,  voluntarily  voted  to  give 
him  the  two  hundred  Sharp's  rifles,  together  with  four  thou 
sand  ball  cartridges  and  thirty -one  thousand  percussion  caps, 
then  in  the  Rev.  John  Todd's  cellar  at  Tabor.15  These  arms 
Brown  was  glad  to  obtain,  because  of  their  nearness  to  the 
scene  of  action;  he  was  to  take  possession  of  them  as  the 
agent  of  the  committee,  and,  more  than  that,  was  authorized 
to  draw  on  the  treasurer,  Mr.  P.  T.  Jackson,  for  not  less 
than  five  hundred  dollars  for  expenses.  The  only  conditions 
were  that  these  rifles  were  to  be  held  subject  to  the  order 
of  the  committee,  and  that  Brown  was  to  report  from  time 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS         275 

to  time  the  condition  of  the  property  and  the  disposition 
made  of  it,  "so  far  as  it  is  proper  to  do  so."  Subsequently 
(April  15,  1857),  Brown  was  authorized  to  sell  one  hundred 
of  these  rifles  to  Free  State  settlers  in  Kansas  for  not  less 
than  fifteen  dollars  each,  and  to  apply  the  proceeds  to  relieve 
the  suffering  inhabitants  of  the  Territory.16  These  weapons, 
originally  purchased  by  Dr.  Cabot,  under  instructions  voted 
on  September  10,  were  first  intended  to  be  "  loaned  to  actual 
settlers  for  defence  against  unlawful  aggressions  upon  their 
rights  and  liberties."  17  Afterwards,  there  arose  a  misunder 
standing  as  to  the  ownership  of  these  arms  between  the  State 
Committee,  the  National  Committee  and  the  Central  Com 
mittee  for  Kansas  at  Lawrence,  which  was  finally  straightened 
out  by  the  National  Committee's  relinquishment  of  all  claim 
to  the  rifles,  just  as  the  Massachusetts  Committee  was  about 
to  proceed  legally  for  their  recovery. 

It  was  at  the  Astor  House  in  New  York  that  the  National 
Kansas  Committee  met  on  Saturday,  January  24,  for  the  ses 
sion  at  which  the  rifles  were  returned  to  the  original  donors. 
John  Brown  applied  for  them,  but,  as  Horace  White  sub 
sequently  testified,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  opposition  to 
the  policy  of  granting  him  arms.18  Twelve  boxes  of  selected 
clothing,  sufficient  for  sixty  persons,  were  given  to  him,  but 
the  question  of  the  rifles  was  settled  by  transferring  them  to 
the  Massachusetts  Committee,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Sanborn. 
A  resolution  appropriating  five  thousand  dollars  for  John 
Brown  was  violently  opposed  by  those  who  were  against  giv 
ing  him  the  rifles;  they  felt  that  he  was  too  radical  and  violent 
to  be  trusted  with  such  a  sum,  and  that  he  would,  if  given  it, 
disburse  it  in  ways  the  Committee  might  not  sanction.19  The 
Secretary  of  the  National  Committee,  H.  B.  Hurd,  recorded  in 
1860  that  he  asked  Brown  before  the  Committee:  "  If  you  get 
the  arms  and  money  you  desire,  will  you  invade  Missouri  or 
any  slave  territory?"  To  which  he  [Brown]  replied: 

"I  am  no  adventurer.  You  all  know  me.  You  are  acquainted 
with  my  history.  You  know  what  I  have  done  in  Kansas.  I  do  not 
expose  my  plans.  No  one  knows  them  but  myself,  except  perhaps 
one.  I  will  not  be  interrogated;  if  you  wish  to  give  me  anything  I 
want  you  to  give  it  freely.  I  have  no  other  purpose  but  to  serve 
the  cause  of  liberty."20 


276  JOHN  BROWN 

While  the  reply  was  not  satisfactory  so  far  as  the  rifles  in 
question  were  concerned,  the  Committee  did  vote  five  thou 
sand  dollars  "in  aid  of  Capt.  John  Brown  in  any  defensive 
measures  that  may  become  necessary."  He  was  authorized 
to  draw  five  hundred  dollars  whenever  he  wished  it,  but  it  is 
interesting  to  note  that  he  never  obtained  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  and  that  not  until  the  summer  of 
1857,  the  Committee  having  no  more  to  give.  How  this 
failure  rankled  in  Brown's  mind  appears  in  his  letter  of  April 
3,  1857,  to  William  Barnes,  of  Albany,  who  yet  preserves  the 
original:  "I  am  prepared  to  expect  nothing  but  bad  faith  from 
the  National  Kansas  Committee  at  Chicago,  as  I  will  show 
you  hereafter.  This  is  for  the  present  confidential.11  In  notify 
ing  Brown  officially,  after  the  action  of  the  Committee,  Mr. 
Hurd  stated  that  "such  arms  and  supplies  as  the  Committee 
may  have  and  wrhich  may  be  needed  by  Capt.  Brown"  were 
appropriated  to  his  use,  "provided  that  the  arms  &  supplies 
be  not  more  than  enough  for  one  hundred  men."  21  But  this 
obviously  did  not  apply  to  the  rifles  previously  returned  to 
Massachusetts.  Under  this  provision,  twenty-five  Colt's  navy 
revolvers  were  subsequently  sent  to  Brown  at  Lawrence 
through  Mr.  W.  F.  M.  Arny,  agent  of  the  Committee,  but 
they  never  reached  Brown  himself.  As  he  did  not  appear  to 
claim  them,  they  were  loaned  to  the  Stubbs  military  company. 
John  Brown,  in  explanation  of  his  attitude,  told  Horace  White 
that  he  "had  had  so  much  trouble  and  fuss  and  difficulty  with 
the  people  of  Lawrence,  that  he  would  never  go  there  again 
to  claim  anything."  22 

Immediately  after  the  adjournment  of  the  National  Com 
mittee,  Brown  placed  in  Horace  WThite's  hands  a  substantial 
list  of  articles  he  needed  for  the  equipment  of  fifty  volunteers, 
and  the  cost  thereof  delivered  in  Lawrence  or  Topeka.23* 
Jonas  Jones,  of  Tabor,  who  was  in  official  charge  of  the  Free 
State  supplies  there,  was  ordered  to  retain  everything  in  his 
hands  until  John  Brown  had  made  his  choice.  By  February  18, 
Mr.  W7hite  wrote  that  the  articles  Brown  had  requisitioned 
would  be  shipped  the  following  week,  and  on  March  21  he 
notified  Brown  that  he  would  shortly  go  to  Kansas  and  work 
there  to  fit  Brown  out  with  all  the  supplies  he  was  entitled  to 

*  See  Appendix  for  this  requisition. 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS          277 

under  the  New  York  resolution;24  while  in  the  same  month, 
W.  F.  M.  Arny  wrote  that  he  had  packed  and  sent  to  Jonas 
Jones  fourteen  boxes  of  clothing  for  Brown's  use.25  While 
his  interests  were  thus  considerately  being  cared  for,  after  the 
New  York  meeting,  Brown  again  went  to  Peterboro,  by  way 
of  Vergennes,  Vermont  and  Rochester,  to  visit  Gerrit  Smith, 
who,  although  contributing  a  thousand  dollars  a  month  to  the 
National  Kansas  Committee,  was  quite  ready  to  help  Brown 
from  time  to  time,  and  never  kept  account  of  the  sums  he  gave 
to  the  Kansas  fighter.  From  Peterboro,  Brown  made,  with 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  a  flying  trip  to  his  wife  and  family  at  North 
Elba,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  a  year  and  a  half.26  But  he 
was  in  Boston  again  on  February  16,  where  he  wrote  to 
Augustus  Wattles,  asking  for  the  latest  Kansas  news  and  for 
Wattles's  honest  conviction  in  regard  to  Governor  Geary.27 
Indeed,  from  now  on  until  he  finally  went  to  Tabor,  en  route 
to  Kansas,  the  story  of  his  movements  is  one  of  incessant 
and  restless  wandering  throughout  New  England  and  New 
York. 

On  the  1 8th  of  February  he  made  what  was  his  most  nota 
ble  public  appearance  in  New  England  —  before  the  Joint 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  of  the  Massachusetts  Legis 
lature.  The  friends  of  Kansas  were  urging  upon  the  Legisla 
ture  an  appropriation  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  on  the 
ground  that,  as  Mr.  Sanborn  assured  the  Legislature,  "the 
rights  and  interests  of  Massachusetts  have  suffered  gross  out 
rage  in  Kansas."  No  labored  argument  seemed  to  him  neces 
sary,  but  there  were  witnesses  to  testify  to  what  had  occurred 
in  Kansas,  among  them  E.  B.  Whitman,  Martin  F.  Conway 
and  John  Brown.  Whitman  and  Brown  were  introduced  as 
having  the  best  blood  of  the  Mayflower  in  their  veins  and  being 
descendants  of  soldiers  of  the  Revolution.  Brown's  lengthy 
speech  was,  in  substance,  a  story  of  his  own  experiences 
(Pottawatomie  omitted)  and  a  review  of  the  Border  Ruffian 
outrages  upon  individuals  and  towns,  without  mentioning  any 
of  the  Free  State  reprisals.  In  it  he  paid  a  tribute  to  Ottawa 
Jones  and  his  wife  for  their  care  of  himself  and  his  sons. 

"I,"  he  said,  "with  Five  sick,  &  wounded  sons,  &  son  in  law;  were 
obliged  for  some  time  to  lie  on  the  ground  without  shelter,  our 
Boots  &  clothes  worn  out,  destitute  of  money,  &  at  times  almost 


278  JOHN  BROWN 

in  a  state  of  starvation ;  &  dependent  on  the  charities  of  the  Chris 
tian  Indian,  £  his  wife  whom  I  before  named." 

In  the  manuscript  of  this  address,  still  preserved  in  the 
Kansas  Historical  Society,  there  is  the  following  conclusion : 

"It  cost  the  U  S  more  than  half  a  Million  for  a  year  past  to 
harrass  poor  Free  State  settlers,  in  Kansas,  &  to  violate  all  Law, 
&  all  right,  Moral,  &  Constitutional,  for  the  sole  &  only  purpose,  of 
forceing  Slavery  uppon  that  Territory.  I  chalenge  this  whole  nation 
to  prove  before  God  or  mankind  to  contrary.  Who  paid  this  money 
to  enslave  the  settlers  of  Kansas;  &  worry  them  out?  I  say  nothing 
in  this  estimate  of  the  money  wasted  by  Congress  in  the  manage 
ment  of  this  horribly  tyranical,  &  Damnable  affair.1' 

In  answer  to  the  chairman's  question  as  to  what  sort  of  emi 
grants  Kansas  needed,  Brown  replied:  "We  want  good  men, 
industrious  men,  men  who  respect  themselves;  who  act  only 
from  the  dictates  of  conscience;  men  who  fear  God  too  much 
to  fear  anything  human, "  —  an  interesting  statement  in 
view  of  the  omission  of  all  reference  to  slavery.28 

Despite  Brown's  emphatic  words  and  the  moving  story  of 
his  own  sufferings,  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  decided  not 
to  vote  anything  for  the  Kansas  cause,  and  so  Brown  turned 
again  to  raising  the  money  he  needed  for  his  own  company. 
Besides  his  trip  to  Concord,  with  his  two  nights  in  the  Thoreau 
and  Emerson  homes,  he  visited,  in  March,  Canton,  Collinsville, 
Hartford  and  New  Haven,  in  Connecticut,  and  was  several 
times  at  the  Massasoit  House  in  Springfield,  where  he  was  a 
particularly  welcome  visitor  by  reason  of  the  interest  in  him 
of  its  proprietors,  the  Messrs.  Chapin,  who  had  notified  him 
in  the  previous  September  of  their  readiness  to  send  him  fifty 
or  one  hundred  dollars  "as  a  testimonial  of  their  admiration 
of  your  brave  conduct  during  the  war."  29  At  New  Haven,  on 
March  18,  he  received  a  promise  of  one  thousand  dollars.  In 
and  about  Hartford  six  hundred  dollars  were  raised  for  him; 
and  from  Springfield,  Brown  was  able  to  send  four  hundred 
dollars  to  William  H.  D.  Callender,  of  Hartford,  who  for  some 
time  acted  as  his  agent  and  treasurer.30  At  Canton,  where 
both  his  father  and  mother  had  grown  up,  Brown  was  gratified 
by  a  promise  to  send  to  his  family  at  North  Elba,  "Grand- 
Father  John  Brown's  old  Granite  Monument,  about  80  years 
old ;  to  be  faced  and  inscribed  in  memory  of  our  poor  Fredk 


NEW  FRIENDS   FOR  OLD  VISIONS          279 

who  sleeps  in  Kansas,"  —  which  stone  marks  to-day  Brown's 
own  grave.31  He  also  received  in  Canton  and  Collinsville  the 
sum  of  eighty  dollars,  after  lecturing  for  three  evenings  on 
Kansas  affairs.  About  this  time  he  obtained  seventy  dollars 
sent  through  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  as  he  did  one  hundred  dol 
lars  in  April  contributed  by  a  friend  of  Mr.  Stearns  through 
that  generous  patron.32  The  five  hundred  dollars  voted  to  him 
by  the  Massachusetts  Kansas  State  Committee  on  January  7, 
and  a  second  five  hundred  voted  on  April  1 1 ,  Brown  did  not 
obtain  until  the  iQth  or  2Oth  of  April,  when,  at  Mr.  G.  L. 
Stearns's  suggestion,  he  drew  upon  the  Committee  through 
Henry  Sterns,  of  Springfield.33  To  aid  him  in  his  quest,  Brown 
wrote  and  published  in  the  Tribune  and  other  newspapers  the 
following  appeal  for  aid : 

TO  THE   FRIENDS  OF  FREEDOM 

The  undersigned,  whose  individual  means  were  exceedingly  limited 
when  he  first  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  Liberty  in  Kansas,  being 
now  still  more  destitute  and  no  less  anxious  than  in  time  past  to 
continue  his  efforts  to  sustain  that  cause,  is  induced  to  make  this 
earnest  appeal  to  the  friends  of  Freedom  throughout  the  United 
States,  in  the  firm  belief  that  his  call  will  not  go  unheeded.  I  ask 
all  honest  lovers  of  Liberty  and  Human  Rights,  both  male  and  female, 
to  hold  up  my  hands  by  contributions  of  pecuniary  aid,  either  as 
counties,  cities,  towns,  villages,  societies,  churches  or  individuals. 

I  will  endeavor  to  make  a  judicious  and  faithful  application  of  all 
such  means  as  I  may  be  supplied  with.  Contributions  may  be  sent 
in  drafts  to  W.  H.  D.  Callender,  Cashier  State  Bank,  Hartford,  Ct. 
It  is  my  intention  to  visit  as  many  places  as  I  can  during  my  stay 
in  the  States,  provided  I  am  first  informed  of  the  disposition  of  the 
inhabitants  to  aid  me  in  my  efforts,  as  well  as  to  receive  my  visit. 
Information  may  be  communicated  to  me  (care  Massasoit  House) 
at  Springfield,  Mass.  Will  editors  of  newspapers  friendly  to  the 
cause  kindly  second  the  measure,  and  also  give  this  some  half  dozen 
insertions?  Will  either  gentlemen  or  ladies,  or  both,  who  love  the 
cause,  volunteer  to  take  up  the  business?  It  is  with  no  little  sacrifice 
of  personal  feeling  that  I  appear  in  this  manner  before  the  public. 

JOHN  BROWN." 

On  March  19,  while  in  New  Haven,  John  Brown  thus 
turned  to  Amos  A.  Lawrence  for  aid  in  his  private  affairs: 

The  offer  you  so  kindly  made  through  the  Telegraph  some  time 
since  emboldens  me  to  propose  the  following  for  your  consideration. 


280  JOHN  BROWN 

For  One  Thousand  Dollars  cash  I  am  offered  an  improved  piece 
of  land  which  with  a  little  improvement  I  now  have  might  enable 
my  family  consisting  of  a  Wife  &  Five  minor  children  (the  youngest 
not  yet  Three  years  old)  to  procure  a  Subsistence  should  I  never 
return  to  them;  my  Wife  being  a  good  economist,  &  a  real  old  fash 
ioned  business  woman.  She  has  gone  through  the  Two  past  winters 
in  our  open  cold  house:  unfinished  outside;  &  not  plastered.  I  have 
no  other  income  or  means  for  their  support.  I  have  never  hinted 
to  anyone  else  that  I  had  a  thought  of  asking  for  any  help  to  provide 
in  any  such  way  for  my  family ;  &  should  not  to  you :  but  for  your 
own  suggestion.  I  fully  believe  I  shall  get  the  help  I  need  to  op- 
perate  with  West.  Last  Night  a  private  meeting  of  some  gentlemen 
here;  voted  to  raise  me  One  Thousand  Dollars  in  New  Haven,  for 
that  purpose.  If  you  feel  at  all  inclined  to  encourage  me  in  the  mea 
sure  I  have  proposed  I  shall  be  grateful  to  get  a  line  from  you ;  Care 
of  Massasoit  House,  Springfield,  Mass;  &  will  call  when  I  come 
again  to  Boston.  I  do  not  feel  disposed  to  weary  you  with  my  oft 
repeated  visitations.  I  believe  I  am  indebted  to  you  as  the  unknown 
giver  of  One  Share  of  Emigrant  aid  stock ;  as  I  can  think  of  no  other 
so  likely  to  have  done  it.  Is  my  appeal  right  ? 

Very  Respectfully  Your  Friend 

JOHN  BROWN.35 

Mr.  Lawrence  at  once  replied  that  he  had  just  sent  four 
teen  thousand  dollars  to  Kansas  to  found  the  best  possible 
school  system,  and  therefore  was  short  of  cash. 

"But,*'  he  added,  "in  case  anything  should  occur  while  you  are 
in  a  great  and  good  cause  to  shorten  your  life,  you  may  be  assured 
that  your  wife  and  children  shall  be  cared  for  more  liberally  than 
you  now  propose.  The  family  of  Captain  Brown  of  Osawatomie 
will  not  be  turned  out  to  starve  in  this  country,  untill  Liberty  her 
self  is  driven  out."38 

Later,  Mr.  Lawrence  and  Mr.  Stearns  both  agreed  to  this 
proposal,  but  this  thousand  dollars  was  as  slow  to  appear  as 
that  promised  at  New  Haven.  It  was,  however,  finally  raised 
(unlike  the  New  Haven  sum)  and  applied  to  the  purchase  of 
the  land.  The  list  of  contributors  to  this  fund  and  their  gifts 
runs  as  follows: 

Wm.  R.  Lawrence,  Boston $50 

Amos  A.  Lawrence,                    310 

Geo.  L.  Stearns,                          260 

John  E.  Lodge,                            25 

5.  Carter  Brown,      Providence,  R.  1 100 

.  M.  S.  Williams,    Boston 50 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS         281 

W.  D.  Pickman,       Salem        "".   ••"•v  50 

R.  P.  Waters,                " V  10 

S.  E.  Peabody,                            10 

John  H.  Silsbee,            "      ? io 

B.  H.  Silsbee,                "            5 

Cash,                                            io 

Wendell  Phillips,      Boston 25 

W.  I.  Rotch,  New  Bedford     .     .....  io 

John  Bertram,          Salem        75 


$1000 


37 


This  was  not  brought  together  until  Brown  had  found  it 
necessary  to  write,  on  May  13,  the  day  he  left  for  the  West: 
"  I  must  ask  to  have  the  $1000  made  up  at  once;  &  forwarded 
to  Gerrit  Smith.  /  did  not  start  the  measure  of  getting  up 
any  subscription  for  me;  (although  I  was  sufficiently  needy 
as  God  knows) ;  nor  had  I  thought  of  further  burdening  either 
of  my  dear  friends  Stearns,  or  Lawrence.  .  .  ."  38  The  reason 
for  this  urgency  was  that  he  had  committed  himself  for  the 
purchase  of  the  land  to  the  brothers  Thompson.  Even  then 
the  transaction  dragged  on  until  late  in  August,  when  Mr. 
Sanborn  visited  North  Elba  and  put  it  through.39 

From  the  2ist  to  the  26th  of  March,  except  for  a  hasty  trip 
to  Springfield,  Brown  was  in  Worcester,  part  of  the  time  as 
a  guest  of  Eli  Thayer.  On  the  23d  he  spoke  at  an  anti-slavery 
meeting,  and  on  the  25th  he  lectured  in  the  City  Hall,  on 
Kansas.  On  these  and  other  occasions  he  relied  largely  upon 
the  address  he  had  given  before  the  Committee  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Legislature,  to  which  he  had  appended  the  following 
statement  of  his  own  plans  when  in  Connecticut:40 

"I  am  trying  to  raise  from  $20,  to  25,000  Dollars  in  the  Free 
States  to  enable  me  to  continue  my  efforts  in  the  cause  of  Freedom. 
Will  the  people  of  Connecticut  my  native  State  afford  me  some  aid 
in  this  undertaking?  ...  I  was  told  that  the  newspapers  in  a  cer 
tain  City  were  dressed  in  mourning  on  hearing  that  I  was  killed  & 
scalped  in  Kansas.  .  .  .  Much  good  it  did  me.  In  the  same  place 
I  met  a  more  cool  reception  than  in  any  other  place  where  I  have 
stoped.  If  my  friends  will  hold  up  my  hands  while  I  live:  I  will 
freely  absolve  them  from  any  expence  over  me  when  I  am  dead.  ..." 

Dr.  Francis  Way  land,  who  heard  him  at  Worcester,  was 
not  inspired  by  his  oratorical  powers.  "It  is  one  of  the  cu- 


282  JOHN  BROWN; 

rious  facts/'  he  wrote,  "  that  many  men  who  do  it  are  utterly 
unable  to  tell  about  it.  John  Brown,  a  flame  of  fire  inaction, 
was  dull  in  speech."41  Emerson,  on  the  other  hand,  in  re 
cording  in  his  diary  Brown's  speech  at  Concord,  said  he  gave, 

"a  good  account  of  himself  in  the  Town  Hall  last  night  to  a  meet 
ing  of  citizens.  One  of  his  good  points  was  the  folly  of  the  peace 
party  in  Kansas,  who  believed  that  their  strength  lay  in  the  great 
ness  of  their  wrongs,  and  so  discountenanced  resistance.  He  wished 
to  know  if  their  wrong  was  greater  than  the  negro's,  and  what 
kind  of  strength  that  gave  to  the  negro."42 

Later,  Emerson  wrote  this  tribute  to  Brown's  powers  as  a 
speaker: 

"For  himself,  he  is  so  transparent  that  all  men  see  him  through. 
He  is  a  man  to  make  friends  wherever  on  earth  courage  and  integ 
rity  are  esteemed,  the  rarest  of  heroes,  a  pure  idealist,  with  no  by- 
ends  of  his  own.  Many  of  you  have  seen  him,  and  everyone  who  has 
heard  him  speak  has  been  impressed  alike  by  his  simple,  artless 
goodness  joined  with  his  sublime  courage." 

The  financial  results  of  the  Worcester  meetings  were  slim. 
But  Eli  Thayer  gave  him  five  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
weapons  —  a  cannon  and  a  rifle  —  while  Ethan  Allen  and 
Company  also  contributed  a  rifle.44  March  ended  for  Brown 
with  a  flying  trip  to  Easton,  Pennsylvania,  in  company  with 
Frank  Sanborn  and  Martin  Conway,  as  representatives  of 
the  Massachusetts  Kansas  Committee,  in  a  fruitless  effort  to 
induce  ex-Governor  Reeder  to  return  to  Kansas  and  assume 
the  leadership  of  the  Free  State  party.45  But  Mr.  Reeder 
was  too  happily  situated  at  Easton ;  he  was,  however,  so  heart 
ily  in  sympathy  with  Brown's  plan  that  the  latter  wrote 
to  him  for  aid  on  his  return  to  Springfield,  explaining  that 
the  only  difference  between  them  was  as  to  the  number  of 
men  needed,  and  hoping  that  Mr.  Reeder  would  soon  dis 
cern  the  necessity  of  "going  out  to  Kansas  this  spring."  46  It 
was  on  this  visit  to  the  Massasoit  House  that  Brown  found 
a  letter  from  his  wife  telling  him  of  his  sons'  decision  to  fight 
no  more.  To  this  he  replied  on  March  31: 

"  I  have  only  to  say  as  regards  the  resolution  of  the  boys  to  'learn 
and  practice  war  no  more,'  that  it  was  not  at  my  solicitation  that 
they  engaged  in  it  at  the  first  —  that  while  I  may  perhaps  feel  no 


284  JOHN  BROWN' 

ply  remarked  that  he  would  want  them  made.  I  thought  no  more 
about  it  until  a  few  days  afterwards.  .  .  .  The  result  was  that  I 
made  a  contract  with  him." 

This  document  was  not  signed  until  March  30,  ten  days 
after  Blair  had  shipped  one  dozen  spears  as  samples  to  the 
Massasoit  House.  This  was  the  genesis  of  the  Harper's  Ferry 
pikes,  for  the  weapons  Brown  contracted  for  were  never 
delivered  until  1859,  —  long  after  any  Kansas  need  for  them 
had  disappeared. 

The  reason  for  this  delay  is  not  to  be  explained,  as  some 
have  thought,  by  the  theory  that  Brown  from  the  first  in 
tended  to  use  the  spears  elsewhere  than  in  Kansas.  There 
is  evidence,  besides  his  statements  and  letters  to  Blair,  that 
he  really  thought  these  weapons  would  be  of  value  even  to 
the  Free  State  women  of  the  embattled  Territory.  Un 
doubtedly,  Brown  looked  forward  to  a  further  attack  upon 
slavery  after  the  Kansas  battle  was  won.  The  fate  of  Kansas 
appealed  to  him  only  in  so  far  as  it  involved  an  aggressive 
attack  upon  slavery.  He  did  not,  so  Mr.  Sanborn  testifies, 
reveal  his  Virginia  plans,  which  were  always  in  the  back  of 
his  head,  to  any  of  his  new  Massachusetts  friends  until  1858. 
But  in  view  of  his  long-cherished  scheme  for  a  direct  assault 
upon  slavery,  and  his  confidences  at  this  time  to  Hugh  Forbes, 
there  can  be  no  question  that,  in  asking  for  far  more  arms 
than  could  be  used  by  a  hundred  or  even  two  hundred  men, 
his  mind  was  fixed  upon  further  use  for  them  after  the  Bor 
der  Ruffians  had  ceased  from  troubling.  Kansas  was  to  be 
a  prologue  to  the  real  drama ;  the  properties  of  the  one  were 
to  serve  in  the  other.  Had  Brown  obtained  the  money  he 
needed  to  pay  for  the  pikes,  he  would  surely  have  received 
them  in  July,  1857,  on  the  1st  of  which  the  delivery  was  to 
be  made.  But  Brown  was  not  able  to  make  the  first  payment 
of  five  hundred  dollars  within  ten  days,  as  required  by  the 
contract.  Instead,  he  sent  only  three  hundred  and  fifty  dol 
lars,  and  did  not  make  his  next  payment  of  two  hundred 
dollars  until  April  25. 

Blair  was  a  canny  Yankee.  While  he  bought  all  the  mate 
rial  needed — the  handles  were  of  ash  and  the  spearheads 
strong  malleable  iron,  two  inches  wide  and  about  eight  inches 
long,  with  a  screw  and  ferrules  to  connect  the  blade  to  the 


NEW  FRIENDS   FOR  OLD  VISIONS          285 

handle  or  shank  —  and  did  some  work  on  the  contract,  he 
stopped  when  he  had  done  enough  work  to  have  earned  the 
five  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  The  handles  were  laid  aside 
in  bundles  to  season,  and  the  iron  work  carefully  preserved- 
until  such  time  as  Brown  should  give  further  orders  and  sup 
ply  additional  funds.  It  was  not  until  he  received  a  letter 
dated  February  10,  1858,  that  Blair  again  heard  from  his 
Kansas  friend,  and,  with  the  exception  of  another  letter, 
written  on  March  II,  1858,  nothing  further  happened  until 
Brown  unexpectedly  appeared  at  Blair's  door  on  June  3, 
1859,  and  took  the  necessary  steps  to  have  the  pikes  com 
pleted  without  loss  of  time.  Then,  certainly,  it  was  Brown's 
idea  to  place  these  weapons  in  the  hands  of  slaves,  in  order 
that,  unaccustomed  as  they  were  to  firearms,  they  might 
with  them  fight  their  way  to  liberty. 

Brown's  second  investment  at  this  period  cost  him  still 
more  money  than  the  pikes,  and  resulted  in  little  or  no  benefit 
and  some  very  considerable  injury  to  his  long-cherished  plan 
of  carrying  the  "war  into  Africa/'  of  making  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  insecure  by  a  direct  attack  upon  it.  On  one 
of  his  trips  to  New  York  he  met,  late  in  March,  through 
the  Rev.  Joshua  Leavitt,  of  the  New  York  Independent,  one 
Hugh  Forbes,  a  suave  adventurer  of  considerable  ability,  who 
habitually  called  himself  colonel,  because  of  military  service 
in  Italy  under  Garibaldi,  in  the  unsuccessful  revolution  of 
1 848-49. 49  Forbes  was  typical  of  the  human  flotsam  and 
jetsam  washed  up  by  every  revolutionary  movement.  A 
silk  merchant  for  a  time  in  Sienna,  he  was  perpetually  needy 
after  his  arrival  in  New  York,  about  1855,  living  by  his  tal 
ents  as  a  teacher  of  fencing,  and  by  doing  odd  jobs  on  the 
Tribune  as  translator  or  reporter.  About  forty-five  years 
of  age,  he  was  a  good  linguist  and  had  acquired  in  Italy 
some  knowledge  of  military  campaigning,  —  quite  enough  to 
impress  John  Brown,  who  believed  he  had  found  in  Forbes 
precisely  the  expert  lieutenant  he  needed,  not  only  for  the 
coming  Kansas  undertaking,  but  for  the  more  distant  raid 
upon  Virginia.  Vain,  obstinate,  unstable  and  greatly  lacking 
funds,  as  Forbes  was,  Brown's  projects  appealed  mightily 
to  him;  he  speedily  saw  himself  in  fancy  the  Garibaldi  of 
a  revolution  against  slavery.  John  Brown,  the  reticent  and 


286  JOHN  BROWN 

self-contained,  unbosomed  himself  to  this  man  as  he  had 
not  to  the  Massachusetts  friends  who  were  advancing  the 
money  upon  which  he  lived  and  plotted.  The  result  was 
Forbes's  engagement  as  instructor,  at  one  hundred  dollars 
a  month,  of  the  proposed  "volunteer-regular"  company,  to 
operate  first  in  Kansas  and  later  in  Virginia,  into  which 
undertaking  Forbes  entered  the  more  willingly  as  he  learned 
of  the  wealthy  New  England  men  who  were  backing  Brown. 

For  Brown  this  was  an  unhappy  alliance;  dissimilar  in 
character,  training  and  antecedents,  and  alike  only  in  their 
insistence  on  leadership,  mutual  disappointment  and  dissat 
isfaction  were  the  only  possible  outcome  of  the  association 
of  the  two  men.  Forbes,  as  will  be  seen  later,  became  the 
evil  genius  of  the  Brown  enterprise.  First  of  all,  he  absorbed 
money,  when  Brown  had  none  too  much  for  his  own  imme 
diate  needs  and  the  first  payments  to  Blair  for  the  pikes. 
Forbes  was  authorized  by  Brown,  early  in  April,  to  draw 
upon  Mr.  Callender,  of  Hartford,  for  six  hundred  dollars, 
and  he  did  so  within  the  month.  But  he  showed  so  little 
inclination  to  follow  Brown  westward  that  the  latter  soon 
became  suspicious. 

Forbes  had  several  excuses  for  delaying.  It  had  been 
agreed  that  he  should  translate  and  condense  a  foreign  man 
ual  of  guerrilla  warfare;  this  he  did  under  the  title  of  'Man 
ual  of  the  Patriotic  Volunteer.'  This  work  dragged  inter 
minably;  on  June  I,  Joseph  Bryant,  a  New  York  friend  of 
Brown's,  who  acted  for  him,  reported,  after  a  call  on  Forbes, 
that  the  latter  was  content  with  his  progress  and  certain  that 
he  was  losing  no  time.  On  June  16,  Forbes  assured  Bryant 
that  the  book  would  be  ready  in  ten  days;  that  he  was  not 
ready  to  join  Brown;  indeed,  he  now  had  doubts  whether 
any  help  would  be  needed  in  Kansas  until  winter.  This 
report  so  alarmed  Brown  that  on  June  22  he  sent  to  Forbes, 
through  Bryant,  a  demand  for  the  immediate  repayment  of 
the  six  hundred  dollars,  or  as  much  of  it  as  he  might  have 
drawn  through  Callender.  Bryant  at  once  took  the  order 
to  Forbes,  but  becoming  convinced  that  "the  colonel "  was 
acting  in  good  faith,  and  that  much  of  the  money  had  al 
ready  been  spent,  did  not  show  it  to  the  budding  author, 
who  was  now  certain  of  finishing  his  book  "in  about  a  week." 


NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS          287 

To  that  volume,  however,  Forbes  had  not  devoted  all  his 
energies,  for  he  had  spent  considerable  time  in  endeavoring 
to  raise  more  money  with  which  to  bring  his  family  over 
from  Paris,  where  they  were  eking  out  a  precarious  exist 
ence.  Of  Brown's  six  hundred  dollars  the  family  had  received 
one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars;  sums  amounting  to  seven 
hundred  dollars  Forbes  obtained  from  Horace  Greeley  and 
other  friends  of  Free  Kansas,  according  to  a  statement  of 
Mr.  Greeley  in  the  Tribune  for  October  24,  1859.  What 
became  of  these  funds  is  not  known,  but  by  June  25  Forbes 
had  given  up  his  idea  of  bringing  his  family  over,  and  had 
decided  to  send  to  Paris  the  daughter  who  was  in  New  York, 
that  she  might  be  with  her  mother.  Finally,  Forbes  drifted 
westward,  arriving  at  Tabor  on  August  9,  two  days  after 
Brown's  appearance  at  the  same  place.  He  had  stopped  at 
Gerrit  Smith's  at  Peterboro  on  his  way  out,  and  success 
fully  appealed  to  the  purse  of  that  ever  generous  man,  who 
had  " helped"  John  Brown  to  a  "considerable  sum"  ($350) 
when  they  parted  in  Chicago  on  June  22.  Nevertheless, 
Forbes  obtained  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  of  which  he 
sent  all  but  twenty  dollars  back  to  New  York  toward  the 
cost  of  printing  his  book.  Gerrit  Smith  "trusted,"  so  he 
wrote  to  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  that  Forbes  would  "prove  very 
useful  to  our  sacred  work  in  Kansas."  "We  must,"  he  added, 
"not  shrink  from  fighting  for  Liberty  —  &  if  Federal  troops  *" 
fight  against  her,  we  must  fight  against  them."  50 

Aside  from  his  negotiations  with  Forbes,  and  with  Mr. 
Blair  for  the  pikes,  April  was  for  Brown  another  month  of 
active  solicitation  of  funds,  but  with  even  more  disappoint 
ing  results,  complicated  by  the  news,  received  from  his  son 
Jason,  that  a  deputy  United  States  marshal  had  passed 
through  Cleveland,  bound  East  to  arrest  him  for  some  of  his 
Kansas  transactions.51  He  wrote  on  the  i6th,  from  Spring 
field,  to  Eli  Thayer  that: 

"One  of  U  S  Hounds  is  on  my  trackf  &  I  have  kept  myself  hid 
for  a  few  days  to  let  my  track  get  cold.  I  have  no  idea  of  being 
taken;  &  intend  (if  '  God  will';)  to  go  back  with  Irons  in  rather  than 
uppon  my  hands.  ...  I  got  a  fine  lift  in  Boston  the  other  day; 
&  hope  Worcester  will  not  be  entirely  behind.  I  do  not  mean  you; 
or  Mr.  Allen,  &  Co."*\ 


288  JOHN  BROWN 

This  keeping  himself  hid  had  reference  to  his  stay  with 
Judge  and  Mrs.  Russell  in  Boston  for  a  week,  during  which 
time  Mrs.  Russell  allowed  no  one  but  herself  to  open  the 
front  door,  lest  the  "  U  S  Hounds  "  appear.  The  Russell  house 
was  chosen  because  it  was  in  a  retired  street,  and  Judge 
Russell  himself  was  never  conspicuous  in  the  Abolitionist 
ranks,  in  order  that  he  might  be  the  more  serviceable  to 
the  cause  in  quiet  ways.  Mrs.  Russell  remembers  to  this 
day  Brown's  sense  of  humor  and  his  keen  appreciation  of 
the  negro  use  of  long  words  and  their  grandiloquence.  She 
recalls,  too,  that  he  frequently  barricaded  his  bedroom,  told 
her  of  his  determination  not  to  be  taken  alive,  and  added, 
"I  should  hate  to  spoil  your  carpet."53 

It  was  while  staying  with  the  Russells  that  he  came  down 
stairs  one  day  with  a  written  document  which  voiced  his 
bitter  disappointment  at  his  non-success  in  obtaining  the 
funds  he  needed.  He  read  it  aloud,  as  follows: 

"Old  Browns  Farewell:  to  the  Plymouth  Rocks;  Bunker  Hill, 
Monuments;  Charter  Oaks;  and  Uncle  Toms,  Cabbins. 

"Has  left  for  Kansas.  Was  trying  since  he  came  out  of  the  ter 
ritory  to  secure  an  outfit ;  or  in  other  words  the  means  o/  arming  and 
equiping  thoroughly;  his  regular  minuet  men:  who  are  mixed  up  with 
the  people  of  Kansas :  and  he  leaves  the  States ;  with  a  DEEP  FEELING 
OF  SADNESS  :  that  after  having  exhausted  his  own  small  means :  and 
with  his  family  and  his  BRAVE  MEN:  suffered  hunger,  nakedness,  cold, 
sickness,  (and  some  [of]  them)  imprisonment,  with  most  barbarous, 
and  cruel  treatment:  wounds,  and  death:  that  after  lying  on  the 
ground  for  Months;  in  the  most  unwholesome  an d  sickly;  as  well 
as  uncomfortable  places:  with  sick  and  wounded  destitute  of  any 
shelter  a  part  of  the  time;  dependent  (in  part)  on  the  care,  and 
hospitality  of  the  Indians:  and  hunted  like  Wolves:  that  after  all 
this;  in  order  to  sustain  a  cause,  which  every  Citizen  of  this  '  Glorious 
Republic,'  is  under  equal  Moral  obligation  to  do:  (and  for  the  neglect 
of  which  HE  WILL  be  held  accountable  TO  GOD  :)  in  which  every  Man, 
Woman,  and  Child  of  the  entire  human  family ;  has  a  deep  and  awful 
interest:  that  when  no  wages  are  asked,  or  expected:  he  canot  secure 
(amidst  all  the  wealth,  luxury,  and  extravagance  of  this  'Heaven 
exalted '  people ;)  even  the  necessary  supplies,  for  a  common  soldier. 
'  HOW  ARE  THE  MIGHTY  FALLEN  ? ' 

JOHN  BROWN." 

11  BOSTON,  April,  1857." 

For  one  encouraging  happening  about  this  time,  John 
Brown  was  again  indebted  to  the  generosity  of  Mr.  Stearns. 


NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS         289 

He  had  set  his  heart  on  receiving  two  hundred  revolvers,  in 
addition  to  the  twenty-five  donated  by  the  National  Kansas 
Committee,  and  through  Mr.  Thayer  he  had  made  inquiry 
as  to  the  prices  of  several  manufacturers.  Finally,  he  received 
a  low  bid  of  thirteen  hundred  dollars  for  two  hundred  re 
volvers  from  the  Massachusetts  Arms  Company,  through  its 
agent,  T.  W.  Carter,  at  Chicopee  Falls,  who  stated  that  the 
low  price  —  fifty  per  cent  of  the  usual  charge  —  was  due 
solely  to  the  company's  generous  purpose  "of  aiding  in  your 
project  of  protecting  the  free  state  settlers  of  Kansas  and 
securing  their  rights  to  the  institutions  of  free  America"  65 
John  Brown  at  once  reported  this  offer  to  Mr.  Stearns,  saying: 
"Now  if  Rev  T  Parker,  &  other  good  people  of  Boston,  would 
make  up  that  amount;  I  might  at  least  be  well  armed."  56  Mr. 
Stearns  immediately  notified  Mr.  Carter  that  he  would  pur 
chase  the  revolvers  and  pay  for  them  by  his  note  at  four 
months  from  date  of  delivery,  as  this  would  give  him  time  to 
raise  the  money  by  subscription  if  he  desired  to.  The  company 
accepted  the  proposition,  and  shipped  the  revolvers  on  May  25 
to  "J.  B.  care  Dr.  Jesse  Bowen,  Iowa  City,  Iowa,"  with  the 
company's  hope  "  that  there  may  be  no  occasion  for  their  ser 
vice  in  securing  rights  which  ought  to  be  guaranteed  by  the 
principles  of  justice  and  equity."  As  if  he  had  a  little  doubt 
about  their  ultimate  use,  Mr.  Carter  added :  "We  have  no  fear 
that  they  will  be  put  to  service  in  your  hands  for  other  pur 
poses."  In  notifying  Brown  that  his  offer  had  been  accepted, 
Mr.  Stearns  significantly  remarked,  "I  think  you  ought  to  go 
to  Kansas  as  soon  as  possible  and  give  Robinson  and  the  rest 
some  Backbone."  For  himself,  Mr.  Stearns  asked  only  that, 
if  he  paid  for  these  revolvers,  all  the  arms,  ammunition,  rifles, 
as  well  as  the  revolvers  not  used  for  the  defence  of  Kansas, 
be  held  as  pledged  to  him  for  the  payment  of  the  thirteen  hun 
dred  dollars.  The  Massachusetts  Kansas  Committee  by  formal 
vote  assented  to  this  suggestion. 

By  April  23,  Brown's  hopes  of  further  aid  had  vanished. 
On  that  day  he  wrote  to  his  family  from  New  Haven,  asking 
that  they  have  "some  of  the  friends"  drive  at  once  to  West- 
port  and  Elizabeth  town  to  meet  him.57  But  he  was  in  Spring 
field  on  the  25th,  and  on  the  28th,  owing  to  an  attack  of  fever 
and  ague,  he  had  only  just  reached  Albany  on  his  way  to  North 


290  JOHN  BROWN 

Elba,  where  he  remained  about  two  weeks  with  his  family, 
before  leaving  for  Iowa  by  way  of  Vergennes,  Vermont.  From 
this  place  he  wrote  on  May  13  to  George  L.  Stearns,  "  I  leave 
here  for  the  West  today,"  68  without  the  slightest  idea  that  it 
would  take  him  three  months  to  reach  the  rendezvous  in 
Tabor.  He  had  not,  however,  during  the  months  before  his 
departure,  lost  his  interest  in  Kansas  or  failed  to  keep  in  direct 
touch  with  the  situation  there.  Augustus  Wattles  and  James 
H.  Holmes  had  corresponded  with  him,  and  to  the  former 
Brown  had  written,  on  April  8,  the  following  letter,  which  not 
only  records  clearly  the  spirit  in  which  he  again  set  his  face 
toward  Kansas,  but  is  of  special  interest  because  it  appears 
to  be  the  first  one  to  which  he  signed  the  nom-de-plume 
"Nelson  Hawkins,"  that  later  appears  so  frequently  in  his 
correspondence : 

BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS  April  8,  1857. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  Your  favor  of  the  I5th  March,  and  that  of  friend 
H.  of  the  i6th,  I  have  just  received.  I  cannot  express  my  gratitude 
for  them  both.  They  give  me  just  the  kind  of  news  I  was  most  of  all 
things  anxious  to  hear.  I  bless  God  that  he  has  not  left  the  free-State 
men  of  Kansas  to  pollute  themselves  by  the  foul  and  loathesome  em 
brace  of  the  old  rotten  whore.  I  have  been  trembling  all  along  lest 
they  might  back  down  from  the  high  and  holy  ground  they  had  taken. 
I  say,  in  view  of  the  wisdom,  firmness,  and  patience  of  my  friends 
and  fellow-sufferers,  (in  the  cause  of  humanity,)  let  God's  name  be 
eternally  praised!  I  would  most  gladly  give  my  hand  to  all  whose 
"garments  are  not  defiled;"  and  I  humbly  trust  that  I  shall  soon 
again  have  opportunity  to  rejoice  (or  suffer  further  if  need  be)  with 
you,  in  the  strife  between  Heaven  and  Hell.  I  wish  to  send  my  most 
cordial  and  earnest  salutation  to  every  one  of  the  chosen.  My  efforts 
this  way  have  not  been  altogether  fruitless.  I  wish  you  and  friend 
H.  both  to  accept  this  for  the  moment;  may  write  soon  again,  and 
hope  to  hear  from  you  both  at  Tabor,  Fremont  County,  Iowa  — 
Care  of  Jonas  Jones,  Esq. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

NELSON  HAWKINS.58 
AUGUSTUS  WATTLES,  ESQ. 

LAWRENCE,  KANSAS  TERRITORY. 

At  least  one  member  of  Brown's  family  was  disturbed  at 
the  father's  return  to  Kansas.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  wrote  to  him 
thus:  "It  seems  as  though  if  you  return  to  Kansas  this  Spring 
I  should  never  see  you  again.  But  I  will  not  look  on  the  dark 


NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD   VISIONS          291 

side.  You  have  gone  safely  through  a  thousand  perils  and 
hairbreadth  escapes."  60  It  was  more  than  a  mere  undefined 
dread  that  worried  the  son.  His  views  as  to  the  political  situa 
tion  in  Kansas  are  set  forth  in  this  letter  with  noteworthy 
ability.  The  just  announced  return  of  James  H.  Lane  to  the 
Territory  would  give  an  opportunity  to  see  if  the  United 
States  authorities  there  were  still  bent  on  arresting  the  Free 
Soil  leaders,  and  whether  the  Free  Soilers  would  unresistingly 
submit  to  such  a  happening.  He  also  felt  that,  in  view  of  the 
renewed  hostilities  which  he  believed  were  at  hand,  it  would 
be  well  for  his  father  to  delay  his  entrance  into  Kansas,  and 
thus, 

"place  it  out  of  the  power  of  Croakers  to  say  that  the  'peace*  had 
been  broken  only  in  consequence  of  the  advent  there  of  such  dis 
turbers  as  'Jim  Lane'  and  'Old  Brown.*  And  further,  when  war 
begins,  if  the  people  there  take  the  right  ground,  you  could  raise  and 
take  in  with  you  a  force  which  might  in  truth  become  a  'liberating 
army,'  when  they  most  stood  in  need  of  help." 

John  Brown,  Jr.,  then  admitted  that  he  feared  that  the 
Kansans,  for  whom  his  father  was  ready  to  peril  his  life,  would, 
out  of  their  slavish  regard  for  Federal  authority,  be  ready  to 
"hand  you  over  to  the  tormentor."  The  extent  to  which  he 
was  in  his  father's  confidence,  and  the  way  in  which  both  their 
minds  were  working  upon  the  great  post-Kansas  project, 
appears  clearly  from  a  question  in  this  same  letter:  "Do  you 
not  intend  to  visit  Canada  before  long?  That  school  can  be 
established  there,  if  not  elsewhere." 

However  much  he  may  have  taken  his  son's  warnings  to 
heart,  John  Brown  left  for  Kansas  master  of  considerable  sup 
plies.  On  May  18,  Mr.  Stearns  estimated  that  the  contri 
butions  of  arms,  clothing,  etc.,  of  which  Brown  had  entire 
control,  were  worth  $i3,ooo.61  A  careful  count  of  the  sums  he 
is  known  to  have  received  after  January  I  shows  that  they 
aggregated  $2363,  exclusive  of  the  $1000  raised  by  Lawrence 
and  Stearns  for  the  purchase  of  the  North  Elba  land.  Out  of 
this  sum  had  come  travelling  expenses,  some  provision  for  his 
family,  the  $550  paid  for  the  pikes,  and  the  $600  absorbed 
by  Forbes.  To  it  must  be  added  the  $350  given  to  him  in 
Chicago  on  June  22  by  Gerrit  Smith.  The  total  sum  he  raised 


2Q2-  JOHN  BROWN 

was,  of  course,  larger  than  this;  he  obtained,  for  instance, 
some  small  gifts  in  Chicago.  One  large  credit  he  did  not  use. 
In  his  enthusiasm  for  the  cause,  his  admiration  of  the  man 
and  his  complete  confidence  in  Brown's  "courage,  prudence 
and  good  judgment,"  Stearns  gave  his  Kansas  friend  authority 
to  draw  upon  him  for  $7000,  as  it  was  needed,  to  subsist  the 
one  hundred  "volunteer-regulars,"  provided  that  it  became 
necessary  to  call  that  number  into  active  service  in  Kansas  in 
i857.62  This  emergency  not  occurring,  Brown  returned  the 
credit  untouched.  Mr.  Stearns,  be  it  noted,  testified  in  1859 
that,  in  addition  to  everything  else,  he  had  from  time  to  time 
given  Brown  money  of  which  he  never  kept  any  record. 
Counting  the  credit  of  $7000,  the  supplies  worth  $13,000,  and 
estimating  the  other  cash  contributions  at  only  $3000,  it  ap- 
/  pears  that  Brown  was  successful  in  raising  $23,000  toward  his 
project  of  putting  a  company  into  the  field.  But  his  inability 
to  use  the  $7000  en  route,  and  his  long  delay  in  reaching  Tabor, 
together  with  necessary  expenditures  for  horses  and  wagons 
and  wages,  reduced  him  soon  to  distress.  When  he  arrived  at 
his  base  of  action,  Tabor,  he  had  only  twenty-five  dollars  left.63 
Various  causes  contributed  to  Brown's  delay.  He  was  at 
Canastota  on  May  14,  at  Peterboro  on  May  18,  reached 
Cleveland  on  May  22,  and  Akron  the  next  day.  On  May  27 
he  wrote  from  Hudson  that  he  was  "still  troubled  with  the 
ague"  and  was  "much  confused  in  mind."  If  he  should  never 
return,  he  wished  that  "no  other  monument  be  used  to  keep 
me  in  remembrance  than  the  same  plain  old  one  that  records 
the  death  of  my  Grandfather  &  Son  &  that  a  short  story  like 
those  already  on  it  be  told  of  John  Brown  the  5th  under  that 
of  Grandfather."  64  He  added  that  he  was  already  very  short 
of  expense  money,  and  that  he  did  not  expect  to  leave  for  four 
or  five  days.  On  June  3,  while  still  at  Hudson,  he  wrote  thus 
to  Augustus  Wattles,  over  the  name  of  "James  Smith:" 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  I  write  to  say  that  I  started  for  Kansas  some  three 
weeks  or  more  since,  but  have  been  obliged  to  stop  for  the  fever 
and  ague.  I  am  now  righting  up,  and  expect  to  be  on  my  way  again 
soon.  Free-State  men  need  have  no  fear  of  my  desertion.  There 
are  some  half  dozen  men  I  want  a  visit  from  at  Tabor,  Iowa,  to 
come  off  in  the  most  QUIET  WAY,  viz:  Daniel  Foster,  late  of  Bos 
ton  Massachusetts;  Holmes,  Frazee,  a  Mr.  Hill  and  William  David, 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD   VISIONS          293 

on  Little  Ottawa  creek;  a  Mr.  Cochran,  on  Pottawatomie  creek; 
or  I  would  like  equally  well  to  see  Dr.  Updegraff  and  S.  H.  Wright, 
of  Ossawatomie;  or  William  Phillips,  or  CON  WAY,  or  your  honor. 
I  have  some  very  important  matters  to  confer  with  some  of  you 
about.  Let  there  be  no  words  about  it.  Should  any  of  you  come  out  to 
see  me  wait  at  Tabor  if  you  get  there  first.  Mr.  Adair,  at  Ossawato 
mie,  may  supply  ($50,)  fifty  dollars,  (if  need  be),  for  expenses  on 
my  account  on  presentation  of  this.  Write  me  at  Tabor,  Iowa,  Fre 
mont  County.*5 

On  the  Qth  of  June,  Brown  wrote  to  William  A.  Phillips  in  a 
similar  strain,  to  which  Phillips  replied  from  Lawrence  on  June 
24, 66  saying  that  neither  he  nor  Holmes  nor  others  whom  he 
had  seen  could  go  to  Tabor,  that  there  was  then  no  necessity 
for  military  measures,  and  that  the  arms  were  safer  with  Brown 
than  with  any  one  else.  If  he  came  into  Kansas,  he  would  be 
protected.  Wattles's  reply  was  similarly  discouraging,  bring 
ing  the  oracular  advice:  "Come  as  quickly  as  possible,  or 
not  come  at  present,  as  you  choose."67  Frazee  (the  teamster 
who  had  taken  Brown  out  of  Kansas  in  the  previous  fall)  had 
not  returned;  Foster,  Mr.  Wattles  did  not  know;  Holmes  was 
ploughing  at  Emporia,  and  Conway  and  Phillips  were  talking 
politics.  Meanwhile,  Brown  had  visited  Milwaukee  on  June 
1 6,  for  what  specific  purpose  is  not  known;  he  had  tried  to 
induce  Forbes  to  meet  him  in  Cleveland  on  June  I7,68  and 
then  went  to  Chicago  to  meet  Gerrit  Smith.  On  June  24  he 
attended  at  Tallmadge,  Ohio,  the  semi-centennial  of  the 
founding  of  that  town.  The  address  was  delivered  by  the  Rev. 
Leonard  Bacon.  At  its  close,  a  message  came  to  the  speaker 
that  John  Brown  was  present  and  would  like  to  speak  about 
Kansas.  Mr.  Bacon  sent  back  word  to  Brown  that  any  such 
address  would  be  "entirely  inconsistent  with  the  character  of 
the  occasion,"  —  a  happening  which  inspired  Mr.  Bacon  to 
write  to  Governor  Wise,  after  Brown's  capture,  that  it  was  to 
many  at  Tallmadge  proof  of  Brown's  evident  derangement  on 
the  slavery  question.69  Brown's  pocket  memorandum-book,  a 
rough  diary  from  January  12,  1857,  on,  contains  this  entry 
on  June  29,  also  showing  that  he  had  returned  to  Ohio  from 
Chicago:  "June  29th  Wrote  Joseph  Bryant  Col  Forbes,  and  D 
Lee  Child;  all  that  I  leave  here  Cleveland  this  day  for  Tabor, 
Iowa;  &  advise  Forbes,  &  Child,  to  call  on  Jonas  Jones." 

By  July  6  the  memorandum-book  records  Brown's  pre- 


294  JOHN  BROWN 


sence  in  Iowa  City.  Here  he  received  word  from  Richard 
Realf  ,  for  some  time  to  come  one  of  his  followers,  and  after 
wards  well  known  as  a  poet  of  no  mean  ability,  that  he  was 
awaiting  him  at  Tabor  with  one  hundred  and  ten  dollars 
-  the  hundred  and  fifty  of  National  Kansas  Committee 
money,  minus  Realf  s  expenses.  This  money  had  been  sent 
to  Brown  on  June  30  by  Edmund  B.  Whitman,  the  Commit 
tee's  agent  in  Lawrence,  in  response  to  an  urgent  appeal  from 
Brown,  to  whom  Realf  wrote  also  the  good  news  that,  as  the 
government  had  entered  a  nolle  prosequi  in  the  case  of  the 
Free  State  prisoners,  Brown  need  be  under  "no  apprehension 
of  insecurity  to  yourself  or  the  munitions  you  may  bring  with 
you."  70  By  July  17,  Brown  had  only  reached  Wassonville, 
Iowa.  He  had  had  to  obtain  two  teams  and  two  wagons  at 
a  cost  of  seven  hundred  and  eighty-six  dollars,  and  to  hire  a 
teamster  (his  third  son,  Owen,  who  had  been  at  Tabor  for  a 
time).  He  had  had  to  "rig  up  and  load"  the  teams,  and  in 
consequence  of  an  injury  to  a  horse,  he  had  lost  ten  days  on 
the  road.  In  order  to  make  their  scant  funds  hold  out,  "and  to 
avoid  notice,"  he  and  his  son  "lived  exclusively  on  herring, 
soda  crackers,  and  sweetened  water  for  more  than  three  weeks 
(sleeping  every  night  in  our  wagons),  except  that  twice  we  got 
a  little  milk  and  a  few  times  some  boiled  eggs."  71  At  last,  on 
August  7,  he  and  his  son  reached  their  old  quarters  in  Tabor, 
the  home  of  Jonas  Jones. 

By  this  time  it  was  perfectly  apparent  that  there  was  to  be 
no  bloodshed  in  Kansas  that  summery  There  was  another  new 
Governor  in  the  Territory,  Robert  J.  Walker,  of  Mississippi, 
who  had  succeeded  Governor  Geary  after  that  official's  resig 
nation  in  March,  because  of  the  failure  of  the  Buchanan  and 
Pierce  administrations  to  give  him  proper  support.  So  fair  an 
historian  as  Mr.  Rhodes  has  declared  that  Geary  was  an  ideal 
Governor,72  and  a  study  of  his  brief  administration  of  Kansas 
inevitably  leads  to  the  conclusion  that,  whatever  his  faults, 
he  strove  earnestly  to  be  judicial  and  honorable,  and  to  bring 
peace  and  justice  to  Kansas.  Like  Reeder,  Geary  was  a  firm 
Democrat,  and  like  him  he  left  Kansas  convinced  of  the  right 
eousness  of  the  Free  State  cause.  Walker,  his  successor,  had 
been  Senator  from  Mississippi,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  had 
practically  framed  the  tariff  act  of  1846,  and  was,  therefore, 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS         295 

well  known  to  the  country  as  a  politician  of  more  than  usual 
ability  and  standing.  He  was  reluctant  to  go  to  Kansas,  where 
he  arrived  on  May  26,  having  obtained  before  his  depar 
ture  the  consent  of  the  new  President,  Buchanan,  that  any  Con 
stitution  for  the  State  of  Kansas  which  might  be  framed 
should  be  submitted  to  the  people.  His  appointment  in  itself 
helped  to  avert  any  outbreaks,  since  the  Southerners  felt  sure 
—  too  sure  —  that  he  was  one  of  their  own.  As  soon  as  it 
was  apparent  that  he  and  his  able  secretary  of  state,  Fred 
erick  P.  Stan  ton,  were  bent  on  seeing  justice  done,  the  pro- 
slavery  forces,  and  President  Buchanan  as  well,  turned  against 
them,  with  the  result  that  Secretary  Stan  ton  was  removed 
from  office,  and  Governor  Walker  resigned,  in  the  following 
December.  W7alker,  the  fourth  governor  since  October  6, 
1854,  exceeded  by  only  thirty  days  Governor  Geary's  brief  stay 
of  six  months.73 

As  a  whole,  however,  the  outlook  for  freedom  in  Kansas 
was  comparatively  favorable  when  John  Brown  reached 
Tabor.  The  Lecompton  conspiracy,  by  which  a  pro-slavery 
Constitution  was  to  be  forced  on  Kansas  by  a  trick,  had  not 
yet  developed ;  and  while  there  had  been  sporadic  cases  of  law 
lessness  in  certain  counties,  and  James  T.  Lyle,  a  pro-slavery 
city  recorder  of  Leavenworth,  had  been  killed  by  William 
Haller,  a  Free  State  man,  in  an  affray  at  the  polls,  the  year 
1857  was,  on  the  whole,  one  of  quiet  and  progress  for  the  bona 
fide  settlers  of  Kansas.  Free  Soilers  were  pouring  into  the 
State  in  large  force,  and  the  number  of  slaves  remained  so  small 
that  both  sides  realized  the  growing  ascendency  of  the  Free 
Soil  cause.  The  Topeka,  or  Free  State,  Legislature  had  met  on 
January  6,  7  and  8,  when  a  dozen  of  its  members  had  been 
arrested  and  taken  to  Tecumseh ;  it  met  again  in  Topeka  on 
June  13,  without  interference  from  Governor  Walker,  and  ad 
journed  four  days  later  after  passing  some  excellent  measures. 
About  this  time,  there  was  a  Free  State  convention  in  Topeka, 
presided  over  by  General  Lane,  which  endorsed  the  Topeka 
movement,  urged  Free  State  men  not  to  participate  in  the 
1 5th  of  June  election  of  delegates  to  the  Lecompton  Con 
stitutional  convention,  and  declared  the  Territorial  laws  to 
be  without  force.  A  similar  Free  State  convention  met  in 
Topeka  on  July  15  and  16,  with  James  H.  Lane  again  presid- 


296  JOHN  BROWN 

ing  and  Governor  Robinson  as  one  of  the  speakers.  It  called 
a  mass  convention  for  August  26,  at  Grasshopper  Falls,  urged 
upon  the  Governor  the  propriety  of  submitting  the  Topeka 
Constitution  to  the  people,  and  made  nominations  for  the  of 
fices  to  be  filled  at  the  coming  Free  State  election  on  August 
9.  Meanwhile,  in  accordance  with  what  afterwards  seemed  a 
gravely  mistaken  decision  of  the  Topeka  convention  of  June 
9,  the  Free  State  men  had  declined  to  participate  in  the  elec 
tion  of  June  15  for  delegates  to  the  Constitutional  convention. 
Only  twenty- two  hundred  pro-slavery  votes  were  cast  in  all, 
which  showed  that  the  Free  State  men  could  easily  have  out 
voted  their  enemies,  as  was  clearly  proved  when  more  than 
seventy-two  hundred  anti-slavery  votes  were  cast  at  the  Free 
State  election  of  August  9.  It  was  then  too  late ;  the  Lecompton 
Constitutional  convention  was  in  the  hands  of  the  pro-slavery 
men,  headed  by  the  Surveyor-General,  John  Calhoun,  a  bitter 
and  unscrupulous  slavery  champion.  They  agreed  upon  a  Con 
stitution  which  had  been  carefully  prepared  by  the  Southern 
leaders  in  Washington,  and  lent  themselves  readily  to  the 
plan  to  get  slavery  into  Kansas  without  the  consent  of  the 
majority  of  its  bona  fide  inhabitants. 

The  Free  State  election  of  August  9  was  held  two  days 
after  Brown's  arrival  at  Tabor.  The  heavy  vote  cast  was 
fresh  proof  of  the  ascendency  of  the  party  of  peace  among 
the  Free  State  men.  The  Grasshopper  Falls  convention 
also  showed,  by  its  decision  to  participate  in  the  election 
of  October  5  for  Territorial  delegate,  that  the  drift  was 
toward  working  out  a  Kansas  victory  by  resort  to  the  time- 
honored  American  method  of  correcting  abuses  —  the  bal 
lot-box.  Governor  Walker  guaranteed  .a  fair  election,  and 
lived  up  to  his  promise  by  setting  aside  fraudulent  returns. 
Robinson  and  Lane  favored  taking  part  in  the  election,  Con- 
way,  Phillips  and  Redpath,  three  of  Brown's  staunchest 
friends,  opposing.  Altogether,  Brown  found  that  nothing  had 
been  lost  by  the  long  delay  in  his  arrival  near  the  scene  of 
action;  there  was  not  the  slightest  need  for  his  "volunteer- 
regulars;"  the  only  time  Governor  Walker  had  ordered  out 
the  United  States  troops  was  when  dissatisfied  with  the 
holding  of  an  independent  city  election  at  Lawrence  on 
July  13.  This  course  the  Governor  denounced  as  certain 


NEW  FRIENDS  FOR  OLD   VISIONS         297 

to  mean  treason  and  bring  on  "all  the  horrors  of  civil  war," 
if  persisted  in.  His  prompt  action  discouraged  the  radicals 
under  Lane,  who  thereupon  was  the  more  ready  for  a  dif 
ferent  course.  Rifles  the  Free  State  men  had  at  this  moment 
no  need  of  or  desire  for.  As  to  becoming  a  political  leader 
and  putting  the  stiffening  into  Robinson's  backbone,  for 
which  Mr.  Stearns  and  others  hoped,  that  was  a  line  of  ac 
tion  not  to  Brown's  taste,  and  the  defeat  of  his  friends  in  the 
Grasshopper  Falls  convention  must  have  added  to  his  dis 
satisfaction  with  Kansas  conditions.  It  is  not,  therefore,  sur 
prising  if  his  mind  turned  more  and  more  to  the  coming  raid 
against  slavery  along  a  more  timid  and  more  vulnerable 
frontier  than  that  of  Missouri. 

The  day  after  his  arrival  at  Tabor,  John  Brown  wrote  to 
Mr.  Stearns  of  his  various  disappointments,  hindrances 
and  lack  of  means;  these  and  ill-health  had  depressed  him 
greatly.  Two  days  later  he  wrote  again  and  in  better  spir 
its.74  He  was  "in  immediate  want  of  from  Five  Hundred  to 
One  Thousand  Dollars  for  secret  service  &  no  questions  asked." 
"Rather  interesting  times"  were  expected  in  Kansas,  he 
wrote,  "but  no  great  excitement  is  reported."  "Our  next 
advices,"  he  continued,  "may  entirely  change  the  aspect  of 
things.  I  hope  the  friends  of  Freedom  will  respond  to  my 
call:  &  ' prove  me  now  herewith."  He  had  "learned  with 
gratitude"  what  had  been  done  to  render  his  wife  and  chil 
dren  comfortable  by  the  purchase  of  the  Thompson  farm. 
Then,  as  the  result  of  Forbes's  arrival,  he  forwarded  to  Mr. 
Stearns  "the  first  number  of  a  series  of  Tracts  lately  gotten 
up  here,"  of  which  Forbes,  and  not  Brown,  was  the  author. 
It  is  entitled  'The  Duty  of  the  Soldier,1  and  is  headed,  in 
small  type,  "Presented  with  respectful  and  kind  feelings 
to  the  Officers  and  Soldiers  of  the  United  States  Army  in 
Kansas,"  the  object  being  to  win  them  from  their  allegiance 
to  their  colors  and  induce  them  to  support  the  Free  State 
cause.  This  it  does  indirectly  by  asking  whether  the  "sol 
diery  of  a  Republic"  should  be  "vile  living  machines  and 
thus  sustain  Wrong  against  Right."  There  are  but  three 
printed  pages  of  rambling  and  discursive  discussion  of  the 
soldiery  of  the  ancient  republics,  and  of  the  princes  of  an 
tiquity,  and  a  consideration  of  authority,  legitimate  and 


298  JOHN  BROWN 

illegitimate  —  as  ill-fitted  as  possible  an  appeal  to  the  regu 
lar  soldier  of  1857.  To  the  copy  which  he  sent  to  Augustus 
Wattles,  Brown  appended  the  following  in  his  own  hand 
writing,  as  a  "closing  remark:" 

It  is  as  much  the  duty  of  the  common  soldier  of  the  U  S  Army 
according  to  his  ability  and  opportunity,  to  be  informed  upon  all 
subjects  in  any  way  affecting  the  political  or  general  welfare  of  his 
country:  &  to  watch  with  jealous  vigilance,  the  course,  &  man 
agement  of  all  public  functionaries  both  civil  and  military :  and  to 
govern  his  actions  as  a  citizen  Soldier  accordingly:  as  though  he  were 
President  of  the  United  States. 

Respectfully  yours,  A  SOLDIER.75 

Other  copies  John  Brown  sent  to  Sanborn,  Theodore 
Parker  and  Governor  Chase,  of  Ohio,76  asking  each  for  his 
frank  opinion  of  the  tract  and  also  for  aid  in  raising  the 
five  hundred  to  one  thousand  dollars  he  needed  so  sorely. 
Sanborn,  and  probably  Parker,  wrote  his  disapproval  of 
Forbes's  attempt  to  seduce  the  soldiery  of  the  Union;  and 
only  Gerrit  Smith,  to  whom  Forbes  himself  sent  a  copy  with 
an  appeal  for  help  for  his  family  in  Paris,  seems  to  have  been 
pleased  with  it.  He  thought  it  "very  well  written,"  and 
added,  "Forbes  will  make  himself  very  useful  to  our  Kan 
sas  work."  For  the  Forbes  family  he  subscribed  twenty-five 
dollars,  and  urged  Thaddeus  Hyatt  to  raise  some  money  in 
New  York  for  this  purpose  and  forward  it  to  Sanborn  "as 
soon  as  you  can."  77 

But  Forbes's  usefulness  to  Brown  was  not  of  long  dura 
tion;  by  November  2  he  was  on  his  way  back  to  the  East 
from  Nebraska  City.78  He  had  found  no  one  at  Tabor  to 
drill  save  his  employer  and  one  son,  Owen;  and  no  funds 
save  sixty  dollars,  which  Brown  gave  to  him  (doubtless  out 
of  the  National  Kansas  Committee's  one  hundred  and  ten) 
toward  his  expenses.79  Rifle-shooting  at  a  target  on  the  out 
skirts  of  Tabor  was  their  out-door  drill,  while  in-doors  they 
studied  Forbes's  'Manual  of  the  Patriotic  Volunteer,'  and 
discussed  military  tactics  and  their  respective  plans  in  re 
gard  to  the  raid  into  Virginia.80 

One  of  those  who  met  John  Brown  at  this  time,  the  Rev. 
H.  D.  King,  now  of  Kinsman,  Ohio,  records  thus  his  recol 
lections  of  some  of  their  table  talk:81 


NEW   FRIENDS   FOR  OLD   VISIONS          299 

"  I  tried  to  get  at  his  theology.  It  was  a  subject  naturally  sug 
gested  by  my  daily  work.  But  I  never  could  force  him  down  to  dry 
sober  talk  on  what  he  thought  of  the  moral  features  of  things  in 
general.  He  would  not  express  himself  on  little  diversions  from  the 
common  right  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  greater  good.  For  him 
there  was  only  one  wrong,  and  that  was  slavery.  He  was  rather 
skeptical,  I  think.  Not  an  infidel,  but  not  bound  by  creeds.  He  was 
somewhat  cranky  on  the  subject  of  the  Bible,  as  he  was  on  that  of 
killing  people.  He  believed  in  God  and  Humanity,  but  his  attitude 
seemed  to  be:  'We  don't  know  anything  about  some  things.  We  do 
not  know  about  the  humanity  matter.  If  any  great  obstacle  stand  in 
the  way,  you  may  properly  break  all  the  Decalogue  to  get  rid  of  it.' " 

"We  are  beginning  to  take  lessons  &  have  (we  think)  a  very 
capable  Teacher.  Should  no  disturbance  occour:  we  may  pos 
sibly  think  best  to  work  back  eastward.  Cannot  determine  yet" 
wrote  Brown  to  his  wife  and  children  on  August  I7.82  But 
this  life  at  Tabor  soon  palled  on  Forbes,  particularly  as  there 
was  a  sharp  disagreement  between  Brown  and  himself  as  to 
the  future  campaign,  and  increasing  evidence  that  there  was 
to  be  no  active  service  in  Kansas  that  year.  The  needs  of 
his  family  weighed  heavily  upon  him,  and  a  growing  sense 
of  wrong  done  him  by  the  Massachusetts  friends  of  Brown, 
whom  Forbes  dubbed  "The  Humanitarians,"  in  not  supply 
ing  the  salary  Brown  had  promised,  led  to  bitter  denunciations 
of  them  soon  after  Forbes  arrived  in  the  East. 

Jonas  Jones  and  the  Rev.  John  Todd  having  promptly 
turned  over  to  Brown  the  arms  stored  in  the  clergyman's 
cellar,  he  was  able  to  write  on  August  13  to  Sanborn  that  he 
had  overhauled  and  cleaned  up  those  that  were  most  rusted. 
All  were  in  "middling  good  order."83  The  question  then  was 
how  to  get  them  to  Kansas,  and  this  involved  also  a  deci 
sion  as  to  Brown's  own  policy.  Although  apparently  anxious 
to  return  to  Kansas  at  once,  he  did  not  leave  Tabor  for  the 
Territory  until  the  day  he  saw  Forbes  off  for  the  East  at 
Nebraska  City,  November  2.  Various  reasons  are  apparently 
responsible  for  the  delay:  the  failure  of  Kansas  friends  to  come 
to  him ;  the  desire  to  await  the  outcome  of  the  fall  elections ; 
an  injury  to  his  back,  and  a  recurrence  of  his  fever  and  ague. 
The  arms  were  finally  left  behind;  when  Brown  started  for 
Lawrence,  he  went  in  a  wagon  drawn  by  two  horses  and  driven 
by  his  son  Owen. 


300  JOHN  BROWN 

As  to  Brown's  return  to  Kansas,  James  H.  Holmes  wrote, 
on  August  i6,84  that  there  might  be  a  very  good  opening  for 
the  "business,"  for  which  Brown  had  bought  his  "stock  of 
materials,  .  .  .  about  the  first  Monday  in  October  next.  .  .  . 
I  am  sorry,"  he  continued, 

"that  you  have  not  been  here,  in  the  territory,  before.  I  think  that 
the  sooner  you  come  the  better  so  that  the  people  &  the  Territo 
rial  authorities  may  become  familiarized  with  your  presence.  This 
is  also  the  opinion  of  all  other  friends  with  whom  I  have  conversed 
on  this  subject.  You  could  thus  exert  more  influence.  Several  times 
we  have  needed  you  very  much." 

But  Augustus  Wattles,  a  wise  counsellor,  wrote  on  August 
21  without  enthusiasm  as  to  Brown's  final  arrival,  that 
"those  who  had  entertained  the  idea  of  resistance  [to  outside 
authority]  have  entirely  abandoned  the  idea."85  Only  the 
erratic  Lane,  who  was  then  the  sole  person  trying  to  stir  up 
strife  in  Kansas,  and  is  accused  by  reputable  witnesses  of 
planning  schemes  of  wholesale  massacre  of  pro-slavery  men 
through  a  secret  order,  was  on  fire  for  Brown's  presence 
in  the  Territory,  but  it  was  the  Tabor  arms  rather  than 
their  owner  he  really  desired.  His  first  letter  to  Brown  ran 
thus: 

(Private) 

LAWRENCE  Sept.  7,  57. 
SIR 

We  are  earnestly  engaged  in  perfecting  an  organization  for  the 
protection  of  the  ballot  box  at  the  October  election  (first  Monday.) 
Whitman  &  Abbott  have  been  east  after  money  &  arms  for  a  month 
past,  they  write  encouragingly,  &  will  be  back  in  a  few  days.  We 
want  you  with  all  the  materials  you  have.  I  see  no  objection  to  your 
coming  into  Kansas  publicly.  I  can  furnish  you  just  such  a  force 
as  you  may  deem  necessary  for  your  protection  here  &  after  you 
arrive.  I  went  up  to  see  you  but  failed. 

Now  what  is  wanted  is  this  —  write  me  concisely  what  trans 
portation  you  require,  how  much  money  &  the  number  of  men 
to  escort  you  into  the  Territory  safely  &  if  you  desire  it  I  will 
come  up  with  them. 

Yours  respectfully 

J.    H.   LANE.88 

To  this  Brown  replied,  on  the  i6th  of  September,87  that 
he  had  previously  written  to  Lane  of  his  "strong  desire"  to 


NEW  FRIENDS   FOR  OLD  VISIONS          301 

see  him;  "as  to  the  job  of  work  you  enquire  about  I  suppose 
that  three  good  teams  with  well  covered  waggons,  &  ten  really 
ingenious,  industrious  men  (not  gassy)  with  about  $150.  in 
cash,  could  bring  it  about  in  the  course  of  eight  or  ten  days." 
Before  an  answer  to  this  could  arrive,  Brown  learned  from 
Redpath,  who  also  hoped  to  see  him  in  the  Territory  soon, 
that  Lane  had  appointed  him  "Brigadier-General  2nd  Bri 
gade  1st  Division," 88  rather  an  empty  honor,  for  Lane  was  as 
generous  with  brigadier-generalcies  as  a  profligate  European 
potentate  with  decorations  for  his  creditors,  even  casual  vis 
itors  to  the  Territory  receiving  these  commissions.89  Certain 
it  is  that  this  distinction  did  not  cause  Brown  to  exert  himself 
additionally  to  enter  Kansas,  not  even  when  there  appeared 
a  Mr.  Jamison,  who  bore  the  high-sounding  title  of  "Quarter 
master-General  of  the  Second  Division."  "General"  Jamison 
brought  a  letter  from  Lane,  dated  Falls  City,  September  29, 90 
declaring  that  "it  is  all  important  to  Kansas  that  your  things 
should  be  in  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  &  that  you  should  be 
much  nearer  at  hand  than  you  are."  He  enclosed  fifty  dollars, 
added  that  "Gen'l"  Jamison  had  more,  and  insisted  that 
"every  gun  and  all  the  ammunition"  be  sent  in.  "I  do  not 
know  that  we  will  have  to  use  them,  but  I  do  know  we  should 
be  prepared."  All  of  this  made  not  the  slightest  impression 
on  Brown,  as  Jamison  came  alone,  having  left  the  ten  staunch 
men  Brown  had  asked  for  "about  thirty  miles  back."  The 
names  of  these  men  were  all  unknown  to  him,  and  on  inquir 
ing  about  Jamison,  Brown  found  that  "Tabor  folks  (some  of 
them)  speak  slightingly  of  him,  notwithstanding  that  he  too 
is  a  general."91  Moreover,  Jamison  brought  no  teams  with 
him.  Brown  thereupon  returned  the  fifty  dollars  to  Lane  with 
the  following  letter: 92 

TABOR  IOWA  30  Sept.  57. 
MY  DEAR  SIR 

Your  favor  from  Falls  City  by  Mr.  Jamison  is  just  received  also 
$50.  (fifty  dollars)  sent  by  him,  which  I  also  return  by  same  hand  as 
I  find  it  will  be  next  to  impossible  in  my  poor  state  of  health  to  go 
through  in  such  very  short  notice,  four  days  only  remaining  to  get 
ready  load  up  &  go  through.  I  think,  considering  all  the  uncertain 
ties  of  the  case  want  of  teams  &c,  that  I  should  do  wrong  to  set  out. 
I  am  disappointed  in  the  extreme. 

Very  respectfully  your  friend 

JOHN  BROWN. 


302  JOHN  BROWN 

The  next  day,  Brown  wrote  at  length  to  Mr.  Sanborn,  en 
closing  copies  of  his  correspondence  with  Lane.93  He  outlined 
his  immediate  future  as  follows:  "  I  intend  at  once  to  put  the 
supplies  I  have  in  a  secure  place,  and  then  to  put  myself  and 
such  as  may  go  with  me  where  we  may  get  more  speedy  com 
munications,  and  can  wait  until  we  know  better  how  to  act 
than  we  do  now."  He  also  wrote :  "  I  am  now  so  far  recovered 
from  my  hurt  as  to  be  able  to  do  a  little;  and  foggy  as  it  is, 
'we  do  not  give  up  the  ship/  I  will  not  say  that  Kansas,  wa 
tered  by  the  tears  and  blood  of  my  children,  shall  yet  be  free 
or  I  fall."  Brave  as  this  sentiment  is,  it  only  increases  the 
mystery  of  Brown's  delaying  at  Tabor.  In  this  same  letter 
to  Sanborn,  he  wrote  in  high  praise  of  Lane's  speech  at  the 
Grasshopper  Falls  convention,  and  throughout,  Lane  had  been 
more  sympathetic  to  Brown  than  any  of  the  other  Kansas 
leaders.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  injury  of  which 
he  wrote  twice  to  Lane  was  a  serious  one.  Brown  did  not  re 
port  it  to  Mr.  Sanborn  in  his  long  letter  of  August  13,  after 
his  arrival  in  Tabor,  nor  is  there  any  mention  of  it  in  his 
family  letters  of  this  period,  so  far  as  they  have  been  preserved. 
True,  his  financial  conditions  had  not  improved,  because  he 
had  apparently  received  from  the  East  only  $72.68,  which 
came  from  James  Hunnewell,  Treasurer  of  the  Middlesex 
County  Massachusetts  Kansas  Aid  Committee.94  Besides 
having  Owen  Brown  and  Hugh  Forbes  to  aid  him,  he  was 
in  a  community  not  only  intensely  Abolition,  but  at  this 
time  extremely  loyal  to  him  personally,  and  ready  to  help. 
Yet  there  was  none  of  the  determination  to  reach  Kansas  at 
any  cost,  to  be  expected  from  the  iron-nerved  man  who  cap 
tured  Harper's  Ferry.  An  excuse  given  by  Brown  to  Mr.  San 
born  was  the  lack  of  news:  " I  had  not  been  able  to  learn  by 
papers  or  otherwise  distinctly  what  course  had  been  taken  in 
Kansas  until  within  a  few  days ;  and  probably  the  less  I  have 
to  say  the  better."  Still,  he  had  received  a  number  of  letters 
from  friends  in  Kansas,  and  Tabor  was  always  obtaining 
news  from  there.  Why  did  he  not  despatch  Owen  Brown  or 
Forbes,  or  go  himself  quietly,  if  he  was  in  doubt? 

Four  days  after  writing  as  above  to  Mr.  Sanborn,  Brown's 
state  of  mind  appears  from  a  letter  of  October  5  to  the  Adairs 
at  Osawatomie,95  in  which  he  said: 


NEW  FRIENDS   FOR  OLD  VISIONS          303 

"I  have  been  trying  all  season  to  get  to  Kansas;  but  have  failed 
as  yet  through  ill  health,  want  of  means  to  pay  Freights,  travelling 
expenses  &c.  How  to  act  now;  I  do  not  know.  If  you  have  not  already 
sent  me  the  $95  sent  for  me;  to  my  family  last  season;  I  would  be 
most  glad  to  have  it  come  by  Mr.  Charles  P.  Tidd;  if  you  can  do  it 
without  distressing  yourself,  or  family." 

In  addition,  he  asked  for  all  that  Mr.  Adair  could  tell  him 
about  conditions  in  Kansas,  and  for  "  reliable  Kansas  late 
papers."  Obviously,  Brown,  grim,  self-willed,  resolute  chief 
tain  that  he  generally  was,  appears  baffled  here  and  lacking 
wholly  in  a  determination  to  reach  the  scene  of  action  at  any 
cost.  Whether  it  was  because  of  physical  disability;  or  fear  of 
arrest  and  punishment  for  the  Pottawatomie  crimes;  or  mere 
uncertainty  as  to  the  drift  of  affairs  in  Kansas;  or  whether  his 
mind  was  now  so  bent  on  Virginia  that  he  had  lost  interest 
in  all  else,  and  did  not  wish  to  lose  his  arms ;  or  whether  the 
physical  and  financial  difficulties  were  insurmountable,  or 
because  of  all  these  reasons,  that  he  lingered  so  long  in  Tabor, 
is  not  likely  ever  to  become  known.  It  will  be  seen  that, 
when  he  finally  reached  Kansas,  he  stayed  but  a  few  days, 
was  practically  in  hiding,  and  gave  more  time  and  thought 
to  securing  recruits  for  Harper's  Ferry  than  to  anything 
else. 

At  least  one  of  the  Massachusetts  backers  was  impatient 
and  angry  at  the  delay,  —  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
then,  as  always  in  the  Abolition  days,  flaming  for  quick  and 
vigorous  action.  To  soothe  his  discontent,  Mr.  Sanborn  wrote 
tojiim  thus  on  September  II.  in  defence  of  Brown : 9e 


"...  You  do  not  understand  Brown's  circumstances.  .  .  . 
is  as  ready  for  a  revolution  as  any  other  man,  and  is  now  on  the 
borders  of  Kansas  safe  from  arrest  but  prepared  for  action,  but  he 
needs  money  for  his  present  expenses,  and  active  support.  I  believe 
he  is  the  best  Disunion  champion  you  can  find,  and  with  his  hundred 
men,  when  he  is  put  where  he  can  raise  them,  and  drill  them  (for  he 
has  an  expert  drill  officer  with  him)  will  do  more  to  split  the  Union 
than  a  list  of  50,000  names  for  your  Convention,  good  as  that  is. 

"What  I  am  trying  to  hint  at  is  that  the  friends  of  Kansas  are1 
looking  with  strange  apathy  at  a  movement  which  has  all  the  ele 
ments  of  fitness  and  success  —  a  good  plan,  a  tried  leader,  and  a 
radical  purpose.  If  you  can  do  anything  for  it  now,  in  God's  name 
do  it  —  and  the  ill  result  of  the  new  policy  in  Kansas  may  be  pre 
vented." 


304  JOHN  BROWN 

This  letter  is  of  special  value  in  view  of  subsequent  efforts 
to  make  Brown  appear  as  one  who  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
disunion  doctrines  of  the  radical  wing  of  the  Abolitionists.97 
The  fact  remains  that  at  this  time  Brown  himself  was  not 
willing  to  do  and  dare  at  any  cost,  and  was  unable  to  triumph 
over  the  obstacles  that  confronted  him  at  Tabor,  until  finan 
cial  aid  finally  came  from  E.  B.  Whitman  in  Lawrence.  The 
latter  reported  to  Mr.  Stearns,  under  date  of  October  25, 98 
that  he  had  borrowed  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  to  send 
to  Brown,  who  would  be  at  Lawrence  "  a  week  from  Tuesday 
[November  3]  at  a  very  important  council,  Free  State  Cen 
tral  Com.,  Ter.  Executive  Com.,  Vigilance  Committee  of  52, 
Generals  and  Capts  of  the  entire  organization."  "By  great 
sacrifice,"  wrote  Lane  to  Brown  on  October  30,"  "we  have 
raised,  &  send  by  Mr.  Tidd,  $150.  I  trust  the  money  will  be 
used  to  get  the  guns  to  Kansas,  or  as  near  as  possible.  .  .  . 
One  thing  is  certain:  if  they  are  to  do  her  any  good,  it  will  be 
in  the  next  few  days.  Let  nothing  interfere  in  bringing  them 
on."  This  time  Brown  accepted  the  money,  —  he  also  received 
one  hundred  dollars  from  the  Adairs  at  this  juncture,  — and 
entered  Kansas,  without,  however,  gratifying  Lane  by  bring 
ing  in  the  arms.  He  set  out  on  November  2,  parting  from 
Forbes  at  Nebraska  City,  and  drove  straight  to  the  vicinity  of 
Lawrence,  where  he  stopped  at  the  home  of  E.  B.  Whitman, 
arriving  after  the  council  at  which  Mr.  Whitman  had  hoped 
for  his  presence  —  probably  on  November  5. 

He  stayed  but  two  days  with  Mr.  Whitman,*  obtaining 
tents  and  bedding  and  some  more  money,  five  hundred  dol 
lars,  from  that  able  agent  of  the  Massachusetts  Kansas  Com 
mittee,  who,  in  the  following  February,  could  not  conceal  his 
vexation  at  Brown's  disappearance  from  Kansas.  After 
receiving  the  supplies,  wrote  Mr.  Whitman,100 

"he  then  left,  declining  to  tell  me  or  anyone  where  he  was  going 
or  where  he  could  be  found,  pledging  himself,  however,  that  if 
difficulties  should  occur  he  would  be  on  hand  and  pledging  his  life 
to  redeem  Kansas  from  slavery.  Since  then  nothing  has  been  heard 
of  him  and  I  know  of  no  one,  not  even  his  most  intimate  friends, 

*  Among  those  he  saw  at  this  time  was  William  A.  Phillips,  who  recorded  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  for  December,  1879,  the  outlines  of  their  conversation,  which 
he  erroneously  placed  in  February,  1857,  instead  of  November  of  that  year. 


NEW   FRIENDS   FOR  OLD   VISIONS          305 

who  know  where  he  is.  In  the  meantime  he  has  been  much  wanted, 
and  very  great  dissatisfaction  has  been  expressed  at  his  course  and 
now  I  do  not  know  as  even  his  services  would  be  demanded  in  any 
emergency." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that,  in  Novem 
ber,  1857,  a  Free  State  "Squatters*  Court"  was  organized  in 
the  southern  Kansas  counties  of  Linn,  Anderson  and  Bour 
bon,  for  the  trial  of  contested  land  claims  and  similar  cases. 
In  order  to  inspire  terror,  the  judge  of  the  court  was  called 
"Old  Brown,"  although  John  Brown  was  distant  from  the 
Territory.  Dr.  Rufus  Gilpatrick  was  elected  judge  of  the 
court.101  If  John  Brown  was  absent,  his  reputation  was  on 
hand  and  in  service. 

Within  a  week,  Brown  was  in  Topeka,  from  which  place  he 
reported  as  follows  to  Mr.  Stearns:102 

TOPEKA  KANSAS  T.  i6th  Nov  1857 
DEAR  FRIEND 

I  have  now  been  in  Kansas  for  more  than  a  Week:  &  for  about 
Two  days  with  Mr.  Whitman,  &  other  friends  at  Lawrence.  I  find 
matters  quite  unsettled;  but  am  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  there 
will  be  no  use  for  the  Arms  or  ammunition  here  before  another 
Spring.  I  have  them  all  safe,  &  together  unbroken:  &  mean  to  keep 
them  so:  until  I  can  see  how  the  matter  will  be  finally  terminated. 
I  have  many  calls  uppon  me  for  their  distribution;  but  shall  do  no 
such  thing  until  I  am  satisfyed  that  they  are  really  needed.  I  mean 
to  be  busily ;  but  very  quietly  engaged  in  perfecting  my  arangements 
during  the  Winter.  Whether  the  troubles  in  Kansas  will  continue  or 
not;  will  probably  depend  on  the  action  of  Congress  the  coming 
Winter.  Mr.  Whitman  has  paid  me  $500  for  you  which  will  meet 
present  wants  as  I  am  keeping  only  a  small  family.  Before  get 
ting  your  letter  saying  to  me  not  to  draw  on  you  for  the  $7000  (by 
Mr.  Whitman)  I  had  fully  determined  not  to  do  it  unless  driven 
to  the  last  extremity.  /  did  not  mean  that  the  secret  service  money 
I  asked  for ;  should  come  out  of  you ;  &  hope  it  may  not.  Please 
make  this  hasty  line  answer  for  friend  Sanborn ;  &  for  other  friends 
for  this  time.  May  God  bless  you  all;  is  the  earnest  wish  of  your 
greatly  obliged  Friend 

JOHN  BROWN 

P  S  If  I  do  not  use  the  Arms  &  Ammunition  in  actual  service; 
I  intend  to  restore  them  unharmed ;  but  you  must  not  flatter  your 
self  on  that  score  too  soon. 

Yours  in  Truth 
J  B 


3o6  JOHN  BROWN 

To  the  Adairs  he  wrote  on  November  17 :108  "I  have  been 
for  some  days  in  the  territory  but  keeping  very  quiet,  & 
looking  about  to  see  how  the  land  lies.  We  left  Tabor  at  once 
on  the  return  of  Mr.  Tidd  who  brought  us  your  letter;  &  $100 
cash.  ...  I  do  not  wish  to  have  any  noise  about  me  at  pre 
sent;  as  /  do  not  mean  to  'trouble  Israel.' '  Kansas  at  that 
time  was  quiet  enough,  despite  Lane's  feeling  that  the  arms 
might  be  needed.  The  election  of  October  5  for  the  new  Ter 
ritorial  Legislature  and  for  delegate  to  Congress  had  resulted 
in  a  great  Free  State  victory.  The  Free  State  men  elected 
their  delegate  by  4089  votes  and  chose  thirty-three  out  of 
fifty-two  members  of  the  Legislature.  Governor  Walker  set 
aside  the  fraudulent  returns  from  several  precincts  in  which 
there  had  been  scandalous  frauds ;  but  there  was  no  allegation 
of  interference  from  outside  the  State.  It  is  hard  to  understand 
what  vague  fears  or  wild  schemes  led  Lane  to  think  on 
October  30  that  there  might  be  some  important  happenings 
within  the  next  few  days.  Marcus  J.  Parrott,  the  Free  State 
delegate  to  Congress,  had  received  his  certificate  of  election, 
and  the  utmost  tranquillity  reigned.  The  Lecompton  Constitu 
tional  convention  did  not,  it  is  true,  adjourn  until  Novem 
ber  3,  and  the  product  of  its  deliberation,  or  rather  of  the  delib 
erations  of  the  Southern  leaders  in  Washington,  was  not  yet 
on  its  way  to  the  Capitol,  where  the  debate  over  it,  with 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  opposed,  was  to  absorb  the  nation  for  a 
period  of  three  months,  February,  March  and  April  of  1858. 
But  Lane  was  not  justified,  even  then,  in  anticipating  any 
fraud  or  outrage  calling  for  forcible  intervention;  his  own 
opportunity,  in  which  he  was  at  his  best,  came  later  in  No 
vember,  when,  by  stumping  the  Territory,  he  largely  induced 
the  acting  Governor,  Stanton,  to  call  a  special  session  of  the 
Legislature  to  order  the  submission  of  the  Lecompton  Con 
stitution  to  the  people  for  approval. 

In  brief,  the  party  of  peace  was  in  the  ascendant;  even  in 
the  East  there  was  beginning  to  be  a  realization  that  successes 
at  the  polls  were  more  effective  than  "Beecher's  Bibles." 
Thus  Mr.  Stearns  wrote  on  November  14  to  E.  B.  Whit 
man:104  "I  believe  your  true  policy  is,  to  meet  the  enemy  at 
the  polls,  and  vote  them  down.  You  can  do  it  and  should  do 
it,  only  being  prepared  to  defend  yourselves  if  attacked  but 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS        ,'307 

by  no  means  to  attack  them."  This  was  treachery  to  Brown's 
blood-and-iron  policy  in  the  home  of  his  friends.  The  decision 
of  the  Free  State  leaders  to  make  the  best  of  the  situation  and 
work  under  the  existing  Territorial  government,  instead  of 
refusing  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it,  involved,  of  course,  a 
complete  change  of  policy.  It  touched  no  responsive  chord  in 
Brown's  breast.  One  of  his  biographers  remarks  that  there 
was  no  fighting  for  him  to  do  in  1857  because  he  had  done  his 
work  so  thoroughly  in  1856.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
the  fact.  The  progress  to  freedom  and  prosperity  of  Kansas 
was  due  to  several  causes,  but  especially  to  an  abandonment  of 
the  policy  of  carrying  on  an  unauthorized  war,  and  of  meet 
ing  assassination  with  assassination. 

There  is  only  one  allegation  that  Brown  came  in  touch  with 
the  Free  State  leaders  during  his  brief  stay  in  Kansas  in  1857. 
There  was  then  in  existence  a  Free  State  secret  society,  called 
into  being  by  fear  of  the  Lecompton  Constitutional  conven 
tion,  and  determined  to  prevent  the  success  of  the  conspiracy 
to  force  slavery  upon  Kansas  through  its  acts.  Mr.  R.  G. 
Elliott,  of  Lawrence,  states  105  that  the  society  was  pledged  to 

"'unman'  the  convention  soon  after  its  adjournment,  a  term  of 
elastic  definition,  meaning  anything  from  obtaining  resignations 
of  officials  by  persuasion,  to  removing  them  by  capital  excision. 
Abduction  was  the  method  indicated  at  that  juncture.  .  .  .  John 
Brown  had  recently  come  from  Tabor,  Iowa,  and  was  in  the  neigh 
borhood  in  seclusion,  was  communicated  with  by  William  Hutch- 
inson  and  expressed  his  readiness  to  execute  the  plans  of  the 
order  but  with  the  men  exclusively  of  his  own  selection.  To  the 
fear  expressed  by  Robinson  that  Brown  would  resort  to  bloodshed, 
Hutchinson  gave  assurance  that  Brown  pledged  his  faith  to  be 
governed  strictly  by  the  expressed  wishes  of  the  order,  and  further 
more  that  he  had  surveyed  the  situation  at  Lecompton  and  that  he 
could  seize  Calhoun  [the  head  of  the  Constitutional  convention]  and 
carry  him  to  a  place  within  one  hundred  miles  where  he  could  hold 
him  safely  for  three  months." 

But  the  scheme  was  blocked  by  Calhoun's  removing  to  St. 
Joseph. 

The  most  important  result  of  this  visit  of  Brown  to  Kansas 
was  his  recruiting  his  first  men  for  the  Harper's  Ferry  raid. 
No  sooner  had  he  reached  Mr.  Whitman's  than  he  sent  for 
John  E.  Cook,  whom  he  had  met  after  the  battle  of  Black  Jack, 


308  JOHN  BROWN 

before  the  dispersal  of  his  forces  by  Colonel  Sumner.108  When 
Cook  came,  Brown  informed  him  simply  that  he  was  engaged 
in  organizing  a  company  for  the  purpose  of  putting  a  stop  to 
the  aggressions  of  the  pro-slavery  forces.  Cook  agreed  to  join 
him,  and  recommended  Richard  Realf,  Luke  F.  Parsons  and 
R.  J.  Hinton.  On  Sunday,  November  8,  Cook  and  Parsons 
had  a  long  talk  with  Brown  in  the  vicinity  of  Lawrence,  and 
a  few  days  later,  Cook  received  a  note  asking  him  to  join 
Brown,  with  Parsons  if  possible,  on  Monday,  November  16,  at 
a  Mrs.  Sheridan's,  two  miles  south  of  Topeka.  They  were  to 
bring  their  arms,  ammunition  and  clothing.  Cook  made  all 
his  preparations  to  meet  Brown  at  the  time  appointed,  but 
had  to  go  alone.  He  stayed  with  Brown  a  day  and  a  half  at 
Mrs.  Sheridan's,  and  then  went  to  Topeka,  where  they  were 
joined  by  Aaron  D.  Stevens  (Charles  Whipple),  Charles  W. 
Moffet  and  John  H.  Kagi.  They  at  once  left  Topeka  for  Ne 
braska  City,  and  camped  at  night  on  the  prairie  northeast  of 
Topeka.  What  followed,  Cook  stated  in  his  Harper's  Ferry 
confession : 

"Here,  for  the  first,  I  learned  that  we  were  to  leave  Kansas,  to 
attend  a  military  school  during  the  winter.  It  was  the  intention 
of  the  party  to  go  to  Ashtabula  County,  Ohio.  Next  morning 
[November  18]  I  was  sent  back  to  Lawrence  to  get  a  draft  of 
$80.  cashed  [$82.50  according  to  Brown's  memorandum-book],  and 
to  get  Parsons,  Realf  and  Hinton  to  go  back  with  me.  I  got  the 
draft  cashed.  Capt.  Brown  had  given  me  orders  to  take  boat  to 
St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  and  stage  from  there  to  Tabor,  Iowa,  where  he 
would  remain  for  a  few  days.  I  had  to  wait  for  Realf  for  three  or  four 
days;  Hinton  could  not  leave  at  that  time.  I  started  with  Realf  and 
Parsons  on  a  stage  for  Leavenworth.  The  boats  had  stopped  run 
ning  on  account  of  the  ice.  Stayed  one  day  at  Leavenworth,  and 
then  left  for  Weston  where  we  took  stage  for  St.  Joseph,  and  from 
thence  to  Tabor.  I  found  C.  P.  Tidd  and  Leeman  at  Tabor.  Our 
party  now  consisted  of  Capt.  John  Brown,  Owen  Brown,  A.  D. 
Stephens,  Chas  Moffett,  C.  P.  Tidd,  Richard  Robertson  [Richard 
son],  Col.  Richard  Realf,  L.  F.  Parsons,  W.  M.  Leeman  and  my 
self.*  We  stopped  some  days  at  Tabor,  making  preparations  to 
start.  Here  we  found  that  Capt  Brown's  ultimate  destination  was  the 
State  of  Virginia." 

The  very  day  that  Brown  wrote  to  the  Adairs,  "  I  may  find 
it  best  to  go  back  to  Iowa,"  he  set  off  for  Tabor.  The  vacilla- 

*  Cook  overlooked  here  John  H*  Kagi,  who  was  also  present. 


NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS         309 

tion  of  the  last  three  months  was  over.  His  whole  soul  was  now 
wrapped  up  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  plan;  Kansas  was  thence 
forth  forgotten.  Upon  her  further  struggles  for  freedom,  her 
soil  watered  by  his  children's  "  tears  and  blood,"  he  turned  his 
back;  his  readiness  to  die  for  her  if  necessary  was  put  aside. 
He  would  never  have  returned  to  the  Territory,  had  not 
untoward  and  unexpected  circumstances  compelled  him  to 
resume  the  role  of  border  chieftain  in  1858.  Henceforth  his 
whole  energies  were  concentrated  on  "troubling  Israel"  in 
Virginia. 


CHAPTER  IX 
A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT 

JOHN  BROWN'S  newest  recruits,  Cook,  Realf  and  Parsons,  did 
not  take  kindly  to  the  announcement,  at  Tabor,  that  Virginia 
was  to  be  the  scene  of  their  armed  operations  against  slavery. 
Warm  words  passed  between  Cook  and  their  leader,  for  Cook, 
like  Realf  and  Parsons,  had  supposed  that  they  were  to  be 
trained  to  operate  against  Border  Ruffians  only.1  After  a  good 
deal  of  wrangling,  Cook  stated,  they  agreed  to  continue,  as 
they  had  not  the  means  to  return  to  Kansas,  and  the  rest 
of  the  party  were  so  anxious  that  they  should  go  on  with 
them.  Like  their  associates,  these  three  men  were  adventur 
ous  spirits,  spoiled,  like  thousands  of  others,  by  the  Kansas 
troubles  for  leading  a  quiet  and  settled  life.  Anything  that 
smacked  of  excitement  irresistibly  appealed  to  them.  Most 
of  them  were  very  young ; 2  some  had  seen  their  names  in  the 
newspapers  because  of  their  warfare  in  Kansas,  and  were  not 
averse  to  further  notoriety  and  the  chance  to  make  reputa 
tions  for  themselves.  All  of  them  were  steadfast  opponents  of 
slavery  and  ready  to  go  to  any  lengths  to  undermine  it.  But 
beyond  all  this,  in  the  dominating  spirit  of  John  Brown  himself 
must  be  found  the  true  reason  for  their  readiness  to  join  so 
desperate  a  venture  as  Brown  outlined  to  them.  There  was, 
Mr.  Parsons  testifies,  a  magnetism  about  Brown  as  difficult  for 
these  simpler  men  to  resist  as  for  the  philosophers  at  Concord.3 
He  walked  now  more  than  ever  like  an  old  man,  and  made  the 
impression  of  one  well  on  toward  threescore  and  ten,  when  not 
yet  fifty-eight  years  old,  with  hair  that  was  not  white  but  gray. 
Yet  there  was  as  little  doubt  about  his  vigor  and  strength  as 
there  was  of  the  intensity  of  his  hatred  of  slavery.  To  his  new 
followers  Brown  declared  that" God  had  created  him  to  be  the 
deliverer  of  slaves  the  same  as  Moses  had  delivered  the  children 
of  Israel ;  "4  and  they  found  nothing  in  this  statement  to  make 
them  doubt  his  sanity,  or  that  seemed  inherently  improbable. 
A  fanatic  they  recognized  him  to  be;  but  fanatics  have  at  all 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    311 

times  drawn  satellites  to  them,  even  when  the  alliance  meant 
certain  death.  And  so  Parsons,  Realf  and  Cook,  like  Leeman, 
Tidd  and  Kagi  —  the  latter  a  man  of  unusual  parts  —  were 
content  to  go  onward  across  Iowa.  During  their  brief  stay  in 
Tabor,  Brown  offered  to  take  his  men,  go  to  Nebraska  City, 
and  rescue  from  jail  a  slave  who  had  run  away  and  had  lost  his 
arm  when  captured,  if  the  Tabor  people  would  pay  the  actual 
expenses.  He  promised  to  put  the  slave  into  their  hands,  but 
they  were  afraid  of  the  consequences  and  did  not  give  him  the 
means.6 

It  was  on  the  long  wintry  journey  to  Springdale,  Iowa,  with 
two  wagons  laden  with  the  Sharp's  rifles  and  ammunition,  that 
the  details  of  the  Virginia  venture  were  gradually  discussed. 
The  caravan  left  the  friendly  hamlet  of  Tabor  on  December 
4,  according  to  the  diary  of  Owen  Brown,  valuable  fragments 
of  which  survived  the  Harper's  Ferry  raid.6  "Took  leave  of 
Tabor  folks  perhaps  for  the  last  time,"  and  "started  for  Iowa 
City,  Springdale  and  Ohio,"  are  the  entries  which  record  the 
departure.  Progress  was  slow,  for  all  of  the  men  walked  and 
the  weather  was  bitter  cold;  sometimes  it  is  recorded  that 
"Father  used  harsh  words"  in  keeping  the  party,  and  particu 
larly  the  son,  in  hand.  They  camped  by  the  wayside,  avoiding 
towns  as  much  as  possible,  and  made  up  in  warmth  of  debate 
for  the  heat  they  lacked  otherwise.  On  December  8  the  entry 
reads : 

"  Cold,  wet  and  snowy;  hot  discussion  upon  the  Bible  and  war 
.  .  .  warm  argument  upon  the  effects  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  upon 
the  Southern  States,  Northern  States,  commerce  and  manufactures, 
also  upon  the  British  provinces  and  the  civilized  world ;  whence 
came  our  civilization  and  origin?  Talk  about  prejudices  against 
color;  question  proposed  for  debate,  —  greatest  general,  Washing 
ton  or  Napoleon." 

This  is  an  excellent  sample  of  the  wide  range  of  the  daily 
talks  through  the  five  months  these  strongly  marked  charac 
ters  were  leagued  together.  The  diary  concludes  on  this  day : 
"Very  cold  night;  prairie  wolves  howl  nobly;  bought  and  car 
ried  hay  on  our  backs  two  and  a  half  miles ;  some  of  the  men 
a  little  down  in  the  mouth  —  distance  travelled  20  miles." 
Fortunately,  these  travellers  were  inured  to  hardships.  Their 
skill  with  the  rifle  aided  in  eking  out  their  limited  commissary. 


3i2  JOHN  BROWN 

Sundays  they  stayed  in  camp.  Evenings  were  frequently  spent 
in  singing,  by  Brown's  request ;  he  always  joined  with  a  hearty 
good-will  and  named  the  pieces  that  he  wanted  sung,  such  as 
"The  Slave  has  seen  the  Northern  Star,"  "From  Greenland's 
Icy  Mountains,"  etc.  In  this  amusement  Stevens  led;  for  he 
had  an  exquisite  voice,  with  clear,  bugle  notes.  On  Christmas 
Day  they  passed  Marengo,  a  town  about  thirty  miles  from 
Iowa  City ;  and  presumably  reached  their  immediate  destina 
tion,  Springdale,  fifteen  miles  beyond  Iowa  City,  on  the  third 
day  thereafter. 

On  December  29,  according  to  John  Brown's  own  diary, 
Realf  began  to  board  with  James  Townsend,  mine  host  of  the 
tavern  at  West  Branch,  known  as  the  Traveller's  Rest.  Of  this 
Quaker  Boniface  unsupported  tradition  has  it  that  when 
Brown,  dismounting  from  a  mule  at  his  door  on  the  trip 
through  Iowa  in  October,  1856,  asked  Townsend  whether  he 
had  heard  of  John  Brown,  the  tavern-keeper,  "without  reply 
ing,  took  from  his  vest  pocket  a  piece  of  chalk  and,  removing 
Brown's  hat,  marked  it  with  a  large  X;  he  then  replaced  the 
hat  and  solemnly  decorated  the  back  of  Brown's  coat  with 
two  large  X  marks ;  lastly  he  placed  an  X  on  the  back  of  the 
mule."  All  of  which  pantomime  was  an  indication  that  Brown 
and  his  animals  were  on  the  free  list  of  the  hotel.7 

On  the  2Qth,  at  noon,  the  other  ten  members  of  Brown's 
party  began  to  board  with  John  H.  Painter,  a  friendly  Quaker 
at  Springdale,  with  whom  they  remained  until  January  II, 
when  they  moved  to  the  farmhouse  of  William  Maxson,  some 
distance  from  the  village,  which  still  stands,  albeit  in  a  condi 
tion  of  growing  ill-repair.8  One  dollar  and  a  half  a  week  was 
the  moderate  price  asked  for  each  man's  board,  "not  includ 
ing  Washing  nor  extra  lights."  Here  Brown  speedily  found  it 
necessary  to  abandon  his  plan  to  continue  on  to  Ashtabula  in 
his  adopted  State.  He  was  unable  to  sell  his  teams  and  wagons 
for  cash;  the  financial  panic  of  1857  was  now  in  full  swing; 
board  was  cheap  at  Springdale,  and  the  village  itself  was  as 
remote  a  place,  and  as  little  likely  to  be  thought  the  scene  of 
plottings  against  the  peace  of  a  sovereign  American  state,  as 
any  hamlet  in  the  country.  Moreover,  Mr.  Maxson  was  ready 
to  take  the  teams  and  wagons  off  Brown's  hands  and  pay 
for  them  by  boarding  his  men.  It  was  a  fortunate  arrange- 


,      A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    313 

ment  all  around,  and  it  left  the  leader  free  to  go  eastward  and 
unfold  to  his  New  England  friends  the  precise  nature  of  the 
assault  on  Israel  upon  which  he  was  now  embarked. 

On  January  15,  1858,  before  he  left  for  the  East,  Brown  did, 
however,  go  with  some  of  his  men  into  even  greater  details  of 
his  Virginia  plan  than  on  the  winter's  trip  across  Iowa.  To 
Parsons,  for  instance,  he  here  mentioned  Harper's  Ferry  for 
the  first  time,  but  without  speaking  of  an  attack  upon  the 
arsenal.  John  Henrie  Kagi  knew  this  Virginia  district  well, 
and  Brown's  plan,  as  it  was  at  this  time,  commended  itself 
to  his  mind,  which  was  severely  analytical  and  not  given  to 
enthusiasms. 

Just  what  the  plan  for  the  raid  then  was,  appears  from 
a  long  letter  of  Hugh  Forbes,  of  May  14,  1858,  to  Dr.  S.  G. 
Howe,  detailing  his  differences  of  opinion  with  Brown  and 
demanding  that  he  and  his  men  be  disarmed.9  As  soon  as  he 
reached  Tabor,  in  August,  1857,  Forbes  says,  they  compared 
notes  as  to  the  coming  attack  on  slavery  in  Virginia  and 
brought  out  their  respective  schemes.  Brown  proposed,  with 
from  twenty-five  to  fifty  colored  and  white  men,  well  armed 
and  taking  with  them  a  quantity  of  spare  arms,  "to  beat  up 
a  slave  quarter  in  Virginia."  Forbes  objected  to  this  that: 

"No  preparatory  notice  having  been  given  to  the  slaves  (no  no 
tice  could  go  or  with  prudence  be  given  them)  the  invitation  to  rise 
might,  unless  they  were  already  in  a  state  of  agitation,  meet  with  no 
response,  or  a  feeble  one.  To  this  Brown  replied  that  he  was  sure 
of  a  response.  He  calculated  that  he  could  get  on  the  first  night 
from  200  to  500.  Half,  or  thereabouts,  of  this  first  lot  he  proposed 
to  keep  with  him,  mounting  100  or  so  of  them,  and  make  a  dash  at 
Harper's  Ferry  manufactory  destroying  what  he  could  not  carry  off. 
The  other  men  not  of  this  party  were  to  be  sub-divided  into  three, 
four  or  five  distinct  parties,  each  under  two  or  three  of  the  original 
band  and  would  beat  up  other  slave  quarters  whence  more  men 
would  be  sent  to  join  him. 

"He  argued  that  were  he  pressed  by  the  U.  S.  troops,  which  after 
a  few  weeks  might  concentrate,  he  could  easily  maintain  himself 
in  the  Alleghenies  and  that  his  New  England  partisans  would  in 
the  meantime  call  a  Northern  Convention,  restore  tranquility  and 
overthrow  the  pro-slavery  administration.  This,  I  contended,  could 
at  most  be  a  mere  local  explosion.  A  slave  insurrection,  being  from 
the  very  nature  of  things  deficient  in  men  of  education  and  experi 
ence  would  under  such  a  system  as  B.  proposed  be  either  a  flash 
in  the  pan  or  would  leap  beyond  his  control,  or  any  control,  when  it 


314  JOHN  BROWN 

would  become  a  scene  of  mere  anarchy  and  would  assuredly  be 
suppressed.  On  the  other  hand,  B.  considered  foreign  intervention 
as  not  impossible.  As  to  the  dream  of  a  Northern  Convention,  I 
considered  it  as  a  settled  fallacy.  Brown's  New  England  friends 
would  not  have  courage  to  show  themselves,  so  long  as  the  issue 
was  doubtful,  see  my  letter  to  J.  B.  dated  23  February." 

After  weeks  of  discussion,  Brown,  Forbes  declared,  "acqui 
esced  or  feigned  to  acquiesce"  in  a  mixed  project  styled  "The 
Well-Matured  Plan,"  to  which  Forbes  assented  to  secure 
mutual  cooperation.  Forbes's  own  plan,  it  must  be  admitted, 
sounds  much  more  reasonable  and  practical  than  Brown's, 
and  deserves,  therefore,  to  be  made  a  matter  of  record,  par 
ticularly  as  it  had  without  doubt  its  influence  on  Brown.  It 
was  as  follows: 

"With  carefully  selected  white  persons  to  organize  along  the 
Northern  slave  frontier  (Virginia  and  Maryland  especially)  a  series 
of  stampedes  of  slaves,  each  one  of  which  operations  would  carry 
off  in  one  night  and  from  the  same  place  some  twenty  to  fifty  slaves ; 
this  to  be  effected  once  or  twice  a  month,  and  eventually  once  or 
twice  a  week  along  the  non-contiguous  parts  of  the  line ;  if  possible 
without  conflict,  only  resorting  to  force  if  attacked.  Slave  women 
accustomed  to  field  labor,  would  be  nearly  as  useful  as  men.  Every 
thing  being  in  readiness  to  pass  on  the  fugitives,  they  could  be 
sent  with  such  speed  to  Canada  that  pursuit  would  be  hopeless.  In 
Canada  preparations  were  to  be  made  for  their  instruction  and 
employment.  Any  disaster  which  might  befall  a  stampede  would 
at  the  utmost  compromise  those  only  who  might  be  engaged  in  that 
single  one;  therefore  we  were  not  bound  in  good  faith  to  the  Abo 
litionists  (as  we  did  not  jeopardize  them)  to  consult  more  than  those 
engaged  in  this  very  project.  Against  the  chance  of  loss  by  occa 
sional  accidents  should  be  weighed  the  advantages  of  a  series  of 
successful  'runs.'  Slave  property  would  thus  become  untenable 
near  the  frontier ;  that  frontier  would  be  pushed  more  and  more 
Southward,  and  it  might  reasonably  be  expected  that  the  excite 
ment  and  irritation  would  impel  the  proslaveryites  to  commit  some 
stupid  blunders." 

As  he  stated  his  plan  to  Parsons  at  Springdale,  Brown  laid 
stress  upon  his  determination  not  to  fight  or  molest  any  one, 
except  to  help  the  escaping  slaves  to  defend  themselves  or  to 
flee  to  Canada.  This  satisfied  Parsons  for  the  moment,  but  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  the  men  left  at  Springdale  did  not  much 
discuss  the  details  of  their  project  with  one  another.  Owen 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    315 

Brown's  diary  for  February  tells  that  on  the  I2th  there  was 
"talk  about  our  adventures  and  plans."  In  the  main,  discus 
sion  ranged  from  theology  and  spiritualism  to  caloric  engines, 
and  covered  every  imaginable  subject  between  them.  Much 
talk  of  war  and  fighting  there  was,  and  drilling  with  wooden 
swords.  Stevens,  by  reason  of  his  service  in  the  Mexican  War, 
and  subsequently  in  the  United  States  Dragoons,  was  drill- 
master  in  default  of  Forbes.  Sometimes  they  went  into  the 
woods  to  look  for  natural  fortifications;  again  they  discussed 
dislodging  the  enemy  on  a  hill- top  by  means  of  "zigzag 
trenches."  Forbes's  ' Manual'  was  diligently  perused.  Some 
times  the  men  quarrelled  with  one  another;  sometimes  their 
boisterousness  during  their  long  stay  irritated  their  peaceful 
Quaker  neighbors,  many  of  whom  were  but  recent  settlers  in 
that  vicinity.  Some  of  them,  Owen  Brown  records,  suspected 
Mr.  Maxson's  boarders  of  being  Mormon  spies  in  disguise, 
and  others  declared  that  they  were  "no  better  than  runa 
ways"  and  ought  to  be  driven  out  of  the  community,  —  a 
thought  suggested,  perhaps,  by  the  rapidity  with  which  they 
won  for  themselves  sweethearts  in  the  neighborhood  by 
Othello-like  tales  of  their  adventures  and  daring  in  their  Kan 
sas  wanderings.  But  some  of  these  affairs  of  the  heart  resulted 
seriously  and  unfavorably  to  two  or  three  of  the  raiders,  who 
carried  the  scars  thereof  to  their  end.  "One  of  the  diversions 
at  their  home  was  the  trial  by  jury  of  any  member  violating 
certain  proprieties  or  rules.  I  see  that  I  have  made  a  note  of 
a  trial  given  Owen  for  writing  down  in  his  pocket-book  the 
name  of  a  lady  in  the  vicinity.  [Miss  Laura  Wascott.]  Owen 
pleaded  guilty,"  10 — thus  Parsons  recalled  an  incident  of  the 
winter.  But  in  the  main  their  discipline  was  rigid ;  there  were 
black  marks  given  for  misconduct,  and  Cook  was  once  seri 
ously  and  severely  censured  "for  hugging  girls  in  Springdale 
Legislature." 

This  was  the  mock  body  with  which  they  beguiled  the  long 
winter  evenings,  drafting  laws  for  an  ideal  "State  of  Topeka; " 
in  it  Cook,  Kagi  and  Realf  displayed  their  unusual  powers  as 
debaters.  Sometimes  this  legislature  met  at  Mr.  Maxson's, 
more  often  in  the  village  school,  a  mile  or  so  away,  and  it  fol 
lowed  the  regulation  procedure  with  its  bills  and  its  debates. 
Soon  Realf  was  in  demand  as  a  speaker  and  lecturer.11  But 


3i6  JOHN  BROWN 

when  at  Springdale  he  was  not  the  poorest  of  the  band  in 
the  manoeuvres  and  gymnastics  practised  in  the  field  behind 
the  Maxson  house  for  three  hours  every  fair  day,  with  a  view 
to  developing  the  men  physically  to  the  utmost  advantage. 
Only  a  few  of  the  neighbors  suspected  or  knew  that  these  ex 
ercises  were  not  intended  to  fit  the  men  for  service  in  behalf 
of  Kansas.  Townsend  of  the  Traveller's  Rest;  Maxson  and 
Painter,  Dr.  H.  C.  Gill  and  Moses  Varney  were  more  or  less 
in  John  Brown's  confidence  in  1858,  and  most  of  them  tried  to 
dissuade  him  from  his  project.12  But,  as  the  Eastern  friends 
found  out,  there  was  no  possibility  of  success  along  that  line 
of  argument.  Brown  had  made  up  his  mind  to  realize  the  plan 
of  his  lifetime,  even  though  it  sorely  troubled  the  peace-lov 
ing  Quaker  friends  at  Springdale.  One  of  them,  Painter,  gave 
twenty  dollars  to  Brown,  saying:  " Friend,  I  cannot  give  thee 
money  to  buy  powder  and  lead,  but  here's  twenty  dollars 
toward  thy  expenses."  13 

In  short,  the  Springdale  settlement  as  a  whole  wished  him 
well,  despite  the  fact  that  he  was  emphatically  a  man  of 
war,  and  that  his  men,  as  Owen  Brown  at  this  time  recorded, 
believed  with  Jay  that  "he  that  is  guilty  of  such  oppression 
[as  slavery],  making  it  perpetual  upon  the  posterity  of  the 
oppressed,  might  justly  be  killed  outright."  To  them  slavery 
was  the  sum  of  all  oppression,  and  one  of  their  debates  was  an 
inquiry  into  the  reason  why  the  spirit  of  1776  was  so  lacking 
in  the  face  of  the  wrongs  of  1858.  But  this  little  group  of 
young  men,  among  whom  was  Richard  Richardson,  a  runaway 
slave  from  Lexington,  Missouri,  who  had  attached  himself  to 
Brown  at  Tabor,  found  their  stay  in  Springdale  as  care-free  as 
if  they  had  not  agreed  to  challenge  with  their  lives  the  most 
powerful  of  American  institutions.  As  has  been  set  forth  at 
length  in  Irving  B.  Richman's  charming  and  valuable  essay, 
4  John  Brown  Among  the  Quakers,'  "the  time  spent  in  Spring- 
dale  was  a  time  of  genuine  pleasure  to  Brown's  men.  They  en 
joyed  its  quiet,  as  also  the  rural  beauty  of  the  village  and  the 
gentle  society  of  the  people."  14  Brown's  men  have  all  gone; 
hardly  any  one  remains  in  Springdale  to  tell  the  tale  of  their 
stay;  the  Maxson  and  other  houses  of  '58  are  falling  into  de 
cay;  but  the  quiet  beauty  of  Springdale  remains.  It  still  con 
sists  of  one  broad  street  with  modest  frame  houses  surrounded 


THE   SCHOOL-HOUSE   AT   SPRINGDALE,    IOWA 
Where  the  Mock  Legislature  met 


HOUSE   OF   REV.  JOHN   TODD,  TABOR,  IOWA 
Where  John  Brown  stored  his  guns  and  ammunition 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    317 

by  green  and  rolling  fields ;  but  the  Quaker  element  is  little 
noticeable,  and  there  are  fewer  people  residing  there  to-day 
than  fifty  years  ago. 

Thirteen  days  after  leaving  Tabor,  John  Brown  was  in  the 
Rochester  house  of  Frederick  Douglass,15  who  had  so  long 
been  the  confidant  of  his  plan  as  to  Virginia,  and  in  numer 
ous  talks  informed  him  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  the  long- 
cherished  undertaking.  On  the  way  East  he  had  stopped  in 
Lindenville,  Ohio,16  to  visit  his  son  John  and  talk  over  with 
him  the  unpleasant  developments  in  regard  to  Hugh  Forbes, 
about  which  Brown  had  written  to  his  son  on  January  15,  at 
Springdale.  He  had  decided,  on  receiving  a  violent  and  abu 
sive  letter,  to  correspond  with  Forbes  through  a  third  person ; 
the  malevolent  spirit  displayed  by  that  adventurer  making  it 
necessary  for  his  safety,  if  for  no  other  reason.  Forbes  had  not 
waited  long  after  his  return  to  the  East  —  he  had  stopped  at 
Rochester  on  his  way  to  New  York  and  obtained  financial  aid 
from  Frederick  Douglass17 — to  begin,  in  December,  1857,  a 
long  series  of  abusive  letters  to  all  of  Brown's  Eastern  friends 
and  to  the  leading  anti-slavery  statesmen  in  Washington. 
Having  now  firmly  convinced  himself  that  he  had  been  out 
rageously  treated,  he  took  somewhat  of  the  blackmailer's  posi 
tion  and  demanded  money  on  pain  of  publishing  to  the  world 
the  facts  about  Brown  and  his  plans.  The  needs  of  his  family, 
whether  genuine  or  exaggerated,  became  an  obsession  with 
him;  of  Brown  he  demanded  another  six  months'  pay,  on  the 
ground  that  his  engagement  was  for  a  year.  His  begging 
was  endless  and  persistent;  had  he  devoted  but  a  tithe  of 
the  energy  he  put  into  his  letters  to  earning  a  livelihood, 
he  must  have  supported  easily  those  dependent  upon  him. 
To  most  of  those  he  addressed  he  was  utterly  unknown  or  at 
most  a  name;  he  had  not,  of  course,  any  document  to  prove 
that  he  had  been  employed  either  by  the  Massachusetts  Kan 
sas  Committee  or  the  National  Kansas  Committee.  Yet 
he  insisted  that  he  had  been, — misled,  perhaps,  into  believ 
ing  that  the  Kansas  Committees  were  similar  to  the  Euro 
pean  revolutionary  bodies  of  which  he  had  had  experience 
or  cognizance.  He  even  forced  his  way,  in  the  spring  of 
1858,  to  Senator  Henry  Wilson,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate, 
during  a  recess  of  that  body,  and  retailed  to  him  in  great 


3i8  JOHN  BROWN 

excitement  the  story  of  his  wrongs,  renewing  to  Senator  Wil 
son  the  demand  he  had  then  for  some  time  been  making,  that 
Brown  and  his  men  be  disarmed.18  To  William  H.  Seward  he 
portrayed  Brown  as  a  "  very  bad  man  who  would  not  keep  his 
word ; "  "a reckless  man,  an  unreliable  man,  a  vicious  man."  19 
As  a  sample  of  his  utterances,  the  following  will  suffice  to 
show  either  that  the  man  was  unbalanced,  or  that  he  was 
deliberately  trying  to  use  Brown's  inability  to  pay  him  more 
than  six  months'  salary  as  a  club  to  get  means  —  whether 
earned  or  not  —  from  the  New  England  friends : 20 

"Capt.  B.  came  to  me  with  a  letter  from  the  Rev.  Joshua  Leavitt 
of  the  New  York  Independent.  Upon  my  making  inquiries  of  him  he 
stated  that  Capt.  B.  had  no  means  of  his  own  to  meet  any  obliga 
tions  but  that  he  believed  him  to  be  backed  by  good  and  responsible 
men,  and  that  at  any  rate  I  might  repose  faith  in  his  word.  Brown 
on  his  part  trusted  to  the  New  England  promises  made  to  him, 
which  promises  being  subsequently  broken  (because  it  was  imagined 
that  the  border  ruffians  had  abandoned  Kansas)  he  of  course  could 
not  fulfill  his  compact  with  me,  and  when  I  remonstrated,  the  hu 
manitarians  replied  '  We  do  not  know  you  —  We  made  no  engage 
ment  with  you ; '  while  Brown  said  '  Be  quiet  do  not  weaken  my 
hand;'  and  when  I  refused  to  be  quiet,  since  my  children  were  being 
killed  by  slow  torture  through  the  culpability  of  the  humanitarians, 
then  B.  denies  his  obligation  to  me  rather  than  displease  the  men 
of  money.  The  humanitarians  and  Brown  are  guilty  of  perfidy  and 
barbarity,  to  which  may  be  added  stupidity.  .  .  .  You  do  not  take 
into  consideration  that  you  are  perpetrating  an  atrocious  wrong, 
while  I  am  struggling  to  save  my  family.  I  am  the  natural  protector 
of  my  children,  nothing  but  death  shall  prevent  my  defending  them 
against  the  barbarity  of  the  New  England  speculators." 

He  was  by  this  time  charging  that  the  whole  Virginia  pro 
posal  was  a  scheme  of  A.  A.  Lawrence  and  others  interested  in 
New  England  mills,  to  make  money  by  temporarily  causing 
an  increase  in  the  price  of  cotton  through  the  panic  bound  to 
follow  Brown's  attack. 

On  February  9,  Brown  wrote  to  his  son  John,  directing  him 
to  reply  to  a  letter  from  Forbes  in  the  following  disingenuous 
terms:21 

"Your  letter  to  my  father,  of  27th  January,  after  mature  reflec 
tion,  I  have  decided  to  return  to  you,  as  I  am  unwilling  he  should, 
with  all  his  other  cares,  difficulties  and  trials,  be  vexed  with  what 
I  am  apprehensive  he  will  accept  as  highly  offensive  and  insulting, 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    319 

while  I  know  that  he  is  disposed  to  do  all  he  consistently  can  for 
you,  and  will  do  so  unless  you  are  yourself  the  cause  of  his  disgust. 
I  was  trying  to  send  you  a  little  assistance  myself,  —  say  about 
forty  dollars ;  but  I  must  hold  up  till  I  feel  different  from  what  I  do 
now.  I  understood  from  my  father  that  he  had  advanced  you  already 
six  hundred  dollars,  or  six  months'  pay  (disappointed  as  he  has  been) 
to  enable  you  to  provide  for  your  family;  and  that  he  was  to  give 
you  one  hundred  dollars  per  month  for  just  as  much  time  as  you 
continued  in  his  service.  Now,  you  in  your  letter  undertake  to  in 
struct  him  to  say  that  he  had  positively  engaged  you  for  one  year. 
I  fear  he  will  not  accept  it  well  to  be  asked  or  told  to  state  what  he 
considers  an  untruth.  Again,  I  suspect  you  have  greatly  mistaken 
the  man,  if  you  suppose  he  will  take  it  kindly  in  you,  or  any  living 
man,  to  assume  to  instruct  him  how  he  should  conduct  his  own  busi 
ness  and  correspondence.  And  I  suspect  that  the  seemingly  spiteful 
letters  you  say  you  have  written  to  some  of  his  particular  friends 
have  not  only  done  you  great  injury,  but  also  weakened  his  hands 
with  them.  While  I  have,  in  my  poverty,  deeply  sympathized  with 
you  and  your  family,  who,  I  ask,  is  likely  to  be  moved  by  any  ex 
hibition  of  a  wicked  and  spiteful  temper  on  your  part,  or  is  likely  to 
be  dictated  to  by  you  as  to  their  duties?" 

To  this  son,  Brown  explained  that  he  wished  to  see  how  a 
sharp  and  well-merited  rebuke  would  affect  Forbes;  if  it  had 
the  desired  effect,  they  would  send  forty  dollars.  "  I  am  anx 
ious,"  Brown  added,  "to  understand  him  fully  before  we  go 
any  further.  .  .  ." 

While  the  Forbes  matter  was  doubtless  much  on  his  mind 
during  his  stay  of  three  weeks  with  Frederick  Douglass,  his 
chief  concern  was  to  bring  about  a  meeting  of  his  warmest 
and  most  generous  supporters  at  Gerrit  Smith's,  in  Peterboro, 
in  the  latter  half  of  February.  He  declined  a  call  from  Mr. 
Stearns  and  Mr.  Sanborn  to  visit  Boston  because : 22 

"It  would  be  almost  impossible  for  me  to  pass  through  Albany, 
Springfield,  or  any  of  those  points,  on  my  way  to  Boston;  &  not 
have  it  known ;  &  my  reasons  for  keeping  quiet  were  such  that  when 
I  left  Kansas;  I  kept  it  from  every  friend  there;  &  I  suppose  it  is  still 
understood  that  I  am  hiding  somewhere  in  the  territory ;  &  such  will 
be  the  idea;  untill  it  comes  to  be  generally  known  that  I  am  in  these 
parts.  I  want  to  continue  that  impression  as  long  as  I  can ;  or  for 
the  present.  .  .  .  My  reasons  for  keeping  still  are  sufficient  to  keep 
me  from  seeing  my  Wife;  &  Children:  much  as  I  long  to  do  so." 

To  them  Brown  had  written  at  length,  on  January  30, 23  of 
his  relief  of  mind  at  being  again  so  near  them,  of  his  hope  of 


320  JOHN  BROWN> 

devising  a  way  of  meeting  some  one  of  the  deserted  North 
Elba  homestead : 

"The  anxiety  I  feel  to  see  my  Wife;  &  Children  once  more;  I 
am  unable  to  describe.  .  .  .  The  cries  of  my  poor  sorrowstricken  de 
spairing  Children  whoose  '  tears  on  their  cheeks '  are  ever  in  my  Eye; 
&  whose  sighs  are  ever  in  my  Ears;  may  however  prevent  my  enjoy 
ing  the  happiness  I  so  much  desire.  But  courage,  courage,  Courage 
the  great  work  of  my  life  (the  unseen  Hand  that  *  girded  me ;  &  who 
has  indeed  holden  my  right  hand  may  hold  it  still ;)  though  I  have  not 
known  Him ; '  at  all  as  I  ought :)  I  may  yet  see  accomplished ;  (God 
helping;)  &  be  permitted  to  return,  &  rest  at  Evening." 

To  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  he  thus  appealed : 24 

"  I  now  want  to  get  for  the  perfecting  of  BY  FAR  the  most  impor 
tant  undertaking  of  my  whole  life;  from  $500,  to  $800,  within  the 
next  Sixty  days.  I  have  written  Rev  Theodore  Parker,  George  L. 
Stearns,  and  F.  B.  Sanborn  Esqur,  on  the  subject;  but  do  not  know 
as  either  Mr  Stearns,  or  Mr  Sanborn,  are  abolitionists  I  suppose 
they  are.  Can  you  be  induced  to  opperate  at  Worcester,  &  elsewhere 
during  that  time  to  raise  from  Anti-slavery  men  &  women  (or  any 
other  parties)  some  part  of  that  amount?  .  .  .  Hope  this  is  my  last 
effort  in  the  begging  line." 

Higginson  could  not  go  to  Peterboro,  neither  could  Mr. 
Stearns;  moreover,  Brown's  letters  failed  to  interest  them 
because  of  their  indefiniteness.  To  Mr.  Sanborn  the  invitation 
was  particularly  attractive  because  of  the  presence  at  Gerrit 
Smith's  of  a  classmate,  Edwin  Morton,  then  a  tutor  in  Mr. 
Smith's  family.  "Our  old  and  noble  friend,  Captain  John 
Brown  of  Kansas  arrives  this  evening, "  is  the  entry  in  Gerrit 
Smith's  diary  on  February  18,  1858, 25  and  his  welcome  was  in 
keeping  with  these  words.  For  Brown  this  worthy  philanthro 
pist  conceived  a  genuine  affection,  which  appears  in  the  later 
letters  to  the  raider,  and  not  even  in  the  Stearns  or  Russell 
homes  was  he  a  more  welcome  guest.  On  this,  the  most  impor 
tant  of  all  visits,  he  lost  no  time  in  unfolding  his  plans  to  his 
generous  patron,  and  on  the  24th  he  was  able  to  write  to  his 
family:28  "Mr.  Smith  &  family  go  all  lengths  with  me,"  — 
a  significant  phrase  in  view  of  Mr.  Smith's  subsequent  efforts 
to  make  it  appear  that  he  was  not  really  cognizant  of  the 
lengths  to  which  Brown's  plan  was  to  carry  them.  The  final 
and  most  important  exchange  of  views  was  held  when  Mr. 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    321 

Sanborn  arrived,  on  Washington's  Birthday.  What  took  place 
then  has  been  set  forth  in  detail  by  Mr.  Sanborn  at  various 
times.27  In  an  upper  room  of  the  Smith  mansion,  Brown  "un 
folded  his  plans"  for  a  campaign  somewhere  in  slave  territory 
east  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  read  to  them,  so  Mr.  Sanborn 
records, 

"the  singular  constitution  drawn  up  by  him  [in  the  Frederick 
Douglass  house  in  Rochester]  for  the  government  of  the  territory, 
small  or  large,  which  he  might  rescue  by  force  from  slavery,  and  for 
the  control  of  his  own  little  band.  It  was  an  amazing  proposition 
—  desperate  in  its  character,  wholly  inadequate  in  its  provision 
of  means,  and  of  most  uncertain  result.  Such  as  it  was,  Brown 
had  set  his  heart  on  it  as  the  shortest  way  to  restore  our  slave- 
cursed  republic  to  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  ;  and  he  was  ready  to  die  in  its  execution  —  as  he  did."  , 

Amazing  proposition  that  it  was,  Brown's  auditors  gave 
him  respectful  attention  until  after  midnight,  "proposing 
objections  and  raising  difficulties;  but  nothing  could  shake  the 
purpose  of  the  old  Puritan."  He  was  able  in  some  fashion  to 
meet  every  criticism  of  his  plans,  to  suggest  a  plausible  way 
out  of  every  difficulty,  while  to  the  chief  objection,  the  slender 
means  for  undertaking  a  war  upon  the  dominating  American 
institution,  he  opposed  merely  a  Scriptural  text:  "If  God  be 
for  us,  who  can  be  against  us?"  He  wanted  to  open  his  cam 
paign  in  the  spring;  all  he  needed  was  five  hundred  or  eight 
hundred  dollars,  for  he  now  had  the  arms  and  sufficient  men. 
"No  argument  could  prevail  against  his  fixed  purpose."  The 
discussion  went  over  until  the  next  day;  and  despite  the  fool- 
hardiness  of  the  venture,  despite  the  strange  Constitution, 
which  to  many  minds  remains  the  strongest  indictment  of 
Brown's  sanity,  his  will  prevailed.  He  did  not  at  this  time, 
Mr.  Sanborn  testifies,  speak  specifically  of  starting  at  Har 
per's  Ferry  or  taking  the  arsenal ;  the  point  of  departure  was 
left  vague,  but  the  general  outlines  were  about  as  he  had 
described  them  to  Forbes.  Back  of  it  all,  in  his  head,  was  the 
purpose  of  setting  the  South  afire  and  precipitating  a  conflict. 
Finally,  says  Mr.  Sanborn:28 

"We  saw  we  must  either  stand  by  him  or  leave  him  to  dash  himself 
alone  against  the  fortress  he  was  determined  to  assault.  To  with- 


322  JOHN  BROWN 

hold  aid  would  only  delay,  not  prevent  him.  As  the  sun  was  setting 
over  the  snowy  hills  of  the  region  where  we  met,  I  walked  for  an 
hour  with  Gerrit  Smith  among  woods  and  fields  (then  included  in 
his  broad  manor)  which  his  father  purchased  of  the  Indians  and 
bequeathed  to  him.  Brown  was  left  at  home  by  the  fire,  discussing 
points  of  theology  with  Charles  Stewart  [Stuart].  Mr.  Smith  re 
stated  in  his  eloquent  way  the  daring  propositions  of  Brown,  whose 
import  he  understood  fully,  and  then  said  in  substance:  'You  see 
how  it  is ;  our  dear  old  friend  has  made  up  his  mind  to  this  course, 
and  cannot  be  turned  from  it.  We  cannot  give  him  up  to  die  alone ; 
we  must  support  him.  I  will  raise  so  many  hundred  dollars  for  him ; 
you  must  lay  the  case  before  your  friends  in  Massachusetts,  and 
ask  them  to  do  as  much.  I  see  no  other  way.'  I  had  come  to  the 
same  conclusion,  and  by  the  same  process  of  reasoning.  It  was  done 
far  more  from  our  regard  for  the  man  than  from  hopes  of  immediate 


Well  might  Brown  rejoice.  With  Mr.  Smith's  wealth  and 
influence  behind  him,  it  could  now  be  only  a  short  while  before 
he  would  have  in  hand  the  small  sum  he  asked,  and  be  actually 
in  battle  with  the  forces  of  slavery. 

Mr.  Sanborn  left  on  February  24  for  Boston,  ready  to  work 
for  the  plan  there  and  summon  a  gathering  of  a  trusted  few 
who  could  be  counted  on  to  put  their  shoulders  to  the  wheel. 
He  had  scarcely  left  when  Brown,  in  his  exaltation  and  exulta 
tion  of  spirit,  sent  him  these  characteristic  lines:29 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND 

Mr  Morton  has  taken  the  liberty  of  saying  to  me  that  you  felt 
J/2  inclined  to  make  a  common  cause  with  me.  I  greatly  rejoice  at 
this  ;  for  I  believe  when  you  come  to  look  at  the  ample  field  I  labour 
in :  &  the  rich  harvest  which  (not  only  this  entire  country,  but)  the 
whole  world  during  the  present  &  future  generations  may  reap  from 
its  successful  cultivation:  you  will  feel  that  you  are  out  of  your  ele 
ment  until  you  find  you  are  in  it;  an  entire  Unit.  What  an  incon 
ceivable  amount  of  good  you  might  so  effect;  by  your  counsel,  your 
example,  your  encouragement,  your  natural,  &  acquired  ability;  for 
active  service.  And  then  how  very  little  we  can  possibly  loose?  Cer 
tainly  the  cause  is  enough  to  live  for;  if  not  to—  —  *  for.  I  have  only 
had  this  one  opportunity  in  a  life  of  nearly  Sixty  years,  &  could  I  be 
continued  Ten  times  as  long  again,  I  might  not  again  have  another 
equal  opportunity.  God  has  honored  but  comparatively  a  very 
small  part  of  mankind  with  any  possible  chance  for  such  mighty  & 
soul  satisfying  rewards.  But  my  dear  friend  if  you  should  make  up 
your  mind  to  do  so  I  trust  it  will  be  wholly  from  the  promptings  of 

*  Word  omitted. 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    323 

your  own  spirit;  after  having  thoroughly  counted  the  cost.  I  would 
flatter  no  man  into  such  a  measure  if  I  could  do  it  ever  so  easily.  / 
expect  nothing  but  to  "endure  hardness" :  but  I  expect  to  effect  a 
mighty  conquest  even  though  it  be  like  the  last  victory  of  Samson. 
I  felt  for  a  number  of  years  in  earlier  life:  a  steady,  strong,  desire ; 
to  die:  but  since  I  saw  any  prospect  of  becoming  a  "  reaper"  in  the 
great  harvest  I  have  not  only  felt  quite  willing  to  live:  but  have 
enjoyed  life  much;  &  am  now  rather  anxious  to  live  for  a  few  years 
more. 

On  the  same  day,  Brown  left  Peterboro  for  the  home  of 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  J.  N.  Gloucester,  a  well-to-do  colored  couple 
of  Brooklyn,  who  by  wise  investments  and  steady  industry 
had  accumulated  a  fortune.30  To  them  he  revealed  his  plan, 
with  full  confidence  in  their  ability  to  keep  a  secret,  just  as  he 
got  into  frank  communication  with  J.  W.  Loguen,  a  negro  of 
Syracuse.  These  and  other  colored  people  assisted  him  with 
counsel  and  funds,  came  to  believe  whole-heartedly  in  the 
success  of  his  project,  and  remained  faithful  to  the  end.  On 
the  nth  of  March,  Brown  was  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  met 
on  the  1 5th,  at  the  residence  of  the  Rev.  Stephen  Smith  in 
Lombard  Street,  a  little  group  of  colored  men,  among  them 
Frederick  Douglass,  the  Rev.  Henry  H.  Garnett  and  William 
Still.31  To  them,  too,  with  surprising  but  justified  faith  in  the 
ability  of  numbers  to  keep  so  important  a  conspiracy  to  them 
selves,  Brown  stated  his  project  and  appealed  for  men  and 
money,  and  John  Brown,  Jr.,  seconded  him,  for  he  had  met  his 
father  in  Philadelphia  to  discuss  his  own  part  in  the  great 
undertaking.  His  father  wished  him  to  take  a  trip  to  "  Bed 
ford,  Chambersburg,  Gettysburg,  and  Uniontown,  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  travelling  slowly  along,  and  inquiring  of  every  one  on 
the  way  or  every  family  of  the  right  stripe."  He  also  urged 
his  son  to  go  "even  to  Harper's  Ferry."  32  William  Still,  long 
an  active  Underground  Railroad  worker  in  Philadelphia,  was 
especially  valuable  in  this  time,  because  of  his  knowledge  of 
the  Pennsylvania  routes  and  stations. 

All  through  this  period  Brown  was  endeavoring  to  enlist  new 
recruits.  He  counted  on  Frederick  Douglass,  and  the  survivors 
of  his  family  still  feel  that  the  great  colored  orator  failed,  when 
the  real  test  came,  to  live  up  to  his  obligations.33  A  particu 
lar  disappointment  at  this  period  in  1858  was  his  inability  to 
reenlist  his  son-in-law,  Henry  Thompson,  whose  services  and 


324  JOHN  BROWN 

bravery  in  Kansas  had  so  commended  themselves  to  him.  Of 
his  daughter  Ruth  he  asked  whether  any  plan  could 

"be  devised  whereby  you  could  let  Henry  go  'to  school'  (as  you 
expressed  it  in  your  letter  to  him  while  in  Kansas:)  I  would  rather 
NOW  have  him  '  for  another  term ' :  than  to  have  a  Hundred  average 
schollars.  I  have  a  PARTICULAR  &  VERY  IMPORTANT;  (but  not  danger 
ous)  place  for  HIM  to  fill;  in  the  'school ' ;  &  I  know  of  NO  MAN  living; 
so  well  adapted  to  fill  it.  I  am  quite  confident  some  way  can  be 
devised ;  so  that  you;  &  your  children  could  be  with  him ;  &  be  quite 
happy  even:  &  safe  but  '  God  forbid'  me  to  flatter  you  into  trouble. 
I  did  not  do  it  before"  34 

The  daughter  replied  in  doubt,  asking  what  the  post  of 
his  duty  was  to  be,  and  saying  that  her  husband  felt  that  too 
high  an  estimate  had  been  placed  on  his  "  qualifications  as 
a  scholar."  Ruth's  desire  to  preserve  her  husband's  life  con 
quered  in  the  end  her  wish  to  be  of  service  to  her  father  and 
the  great  cause  of  the  Brown  family.35  To  this  Mr.  Thompson 
probably  owes  the  fact  that  he  is  still,  at  this  writing,  in  the 
land  of  the  living. 

Before  his  Philadelphia  conference,  Brown  had  made  a 
hasty  trip  to  Boston,  where  he  met  Higginson,  Parker,  Howe, 
Sanborn  and  Stearns,  at  the  American  House  during  his  four 
days'  stay  from  March  5  to  8.  To  Mr.  Parker  he  wrote,  on 
March  7,  asking  his  aid  in  "  composing  a  substitute  for  an 
address  you  saw  last  season,  directed  to  the  officers  and  sol 
diers  of  the  United  States  Army."  He  had  never  been  able  to 
clothe  his  ideas  in  language  to  satisfy  himself,  but  he  tried  to 
tell  the  great  pulpit  orator  what  he  wanted,  in  these  words : 36 

"In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  short,  or  it  will  not  be  generally 
read.  It  must  be  in  the  simplest  or  plainest  language;  without  the 
least  affectation  of  the  scholar  about  it,  and  yet  be  worded  with 
great  clearness  and  power.  The  anonymous  writer  must  (in  the 
language  of  the  Paddy)  be  'after  others,'  and  not  'after  himself, 
at  all,  at  all.'  If  the  spirit  that  'communicated'  Franklin's  Poor 
Richard  (or  some  other  good  spirit)  would  dictate,  I  think  it  would 
be  quite  as  well  employed  as  the  'dear  sister  spirits'  have  been 
for  some  years  past.  The  address  "should  be  appropriate,  and  par 
ticularly  adapted  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  we  anticipate, 
and  should  look  to  the  actual  change  of  service  from  that  of  Satan 
to  the  service  of  God.  It  should  be,  in  short,  a  most  earnest  and 
powerful  appeal  to  man's  sense  of  right,  and  to  their  feelings  of 
humanity." 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    325 
Brown  also  asked  for  a  similar  short  address, 

"appropriate  to  the  peculiar  circumstances,  intended  for  all  per 
sons,  old  and  young,  male  and  female,  slaveholding  and  non-slave- 
holding,  to  be  sent  out  broadcast  over  the  entire  nation.  So  by 
every  male  and  female  prisoner  on  being  set  at  liberty,  and  to  be 
read  by  them  during  confinement." 

Particularly  striking  is  this  passage,  since  it  foreshadows 
exactly  his  treatment  of  his  prisoners  at  Harper's  Ferry: 

"The  impressions  made  on  prisoners  by  kindness  and  plain  deal 
ing,  instead  of  barbarous  and  cruel  treatment,  such  as  they  might 
give,  and  instead  of  being  slaughtered  like  vile  reptiles,  as  they  might 
very  naturally  expect,  are  not  only  powerful,  but  lasting.  Females 
are  susceptible  of  being  carried  away  entirely  by  the  kindness  of  an 
intrepid  and  magnanimous  soldier,  even  when  his  bare  name  was 
but  a  terror  the  day  previous." 

By  this  appeal  Mr.  Parker  was  not  moved,  his  only  reply 
being  to  send  to  Brown  Captain  George  B.  McClellan's 
recently  issued  report  on  the  armies  of  Europe.37  That  Brown 
was  much  concerned  with  the  reading  of  his  followers  ap-  :> 
pears  from  his  asking  Mr.  Sanborn,  in  February,  for  copies  of 
Plutarch's  'Lives,'  Irving's  'Life  of  Washington,'  the  best 
written  '  Life  of  Napoleon '  and  other  similar  books,  for  use  at 
Springdale.38 

Some  idea  of  the  method  of  raising  the  funds  for  Brown 
appears  from  Mr.  Sanborn's  letters  of  this  period  to  Mr. 
Higginson.  On  March  8  he  reported : 39 

"Hawkins*  has  gone  to  Philadelphia  today,  leaving  his  friends 
to  work  for  him.  $1000  is  the  sum  set  to  be  raised  here  —  of  which 
yourself,  Mr.  Parker,  Dr.  Howe,  Mr.  Stearns  and  myself  each  are 
assessed  to  raise  $100  —  Some  may  do  more  —  perhaps  you  cannot 
come  up  to  that  —  nor  I,  possibly  —  But  of  $500  we  are  sure - 
and  the  $1000  in  all  probability.  .  .  .  Hawkins  goes  to  prepare 
agencies  for  his  business  near  where  he  will  begin  operations.  Dr> 
Cabot  knows  something  of  the  speculation,  but  not  the  whole,  not 
being  quite  prepared  to  take  stock.  No  others  have  been  admitted 
to  a  share  in  the  business,  though  G.  R.  Russell  has  been  consulted." 

A  meeting  was  called  for  March  20,  at  Dr.  Howe's  rooms, 
to  discuss  raising  funds,  in  Mr.  Stearns's  name.  The  next  day 
Mr.  Sanborn  stated  that: 

*  Brown. 


326  JOHN  BROWN 

"  Mr.  Stearns  is  Treasurer  of  the  enterprise  for  N.  E.  —  and  has 

now  on  hand  $150  having  paid  H $100.  .  .  .  Mr.  Stearns  has 

given  $100  &  promises  $200  more,  but  holds  it  back  for  a  future 
emergency.  Mr.  Parker  has  raised  his  $100  &  will  do  something 
more.  Dr.  H.  has  paid  in  $50  and  will  raise  $100  more.  ...  I  paid 
Brown  $25  —  my  own  subscription  —  but  have  as  yet  been  able 
to  get  nothing  else  —  though  I  shall  do  so." 

By  April  i  there  were  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  dol 
lars  in  hand,  but  three  weeks  later,  Brown  had  received  only 
four  hundred  and  ten  dollars  and  was  calling  urgently  for 
the  remainder  of  the  one  thousand  dollars  promised.  In  all 
he  received  at  this  time  only  about  six  hundred  dollars, 
together  with  other  sums  raised  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
-  a  pittance,  indeed,  with  which  to  begin  his  crusade.  Mr. 
Higginson  early  did  his  share.  His  interview  with  Brown  in 
March  had  made  so  deep  an  impression  upon  him  that  he  was 
thereafter  ready  to  do  and  dare  with  Brown  with  unflinching 
courage.  As  it  is  often  said  that  Brown's  chief  success  lay 
in  influencing  weaker  minds,  it  is  worth  noting  the  impres 
sion  a  single  talk  with  him  made  upon  this  able  and  virile 
Worcester  clergyman: 

"  I  met  him  in  his  room  at  the  American  House  [No.  126]  in  March, 
1858.  I  saw  before  me  a  man  whose  mere  appearance  and  bearing 
refuted  in  advance  some  of  the  strange  perversions  which  have 
found  their  way  into  many  books,  and  which  often  wholly  missed 
the  type  to  which  he  belonged.  In  his  thin,  worn,  resolute  face  there 
were  the  signs  of  a  fire  which  might  wear  him  out,  and  practically 
did  so,  but  nothing  of  pettiness  or  baseness;  and  his  talk  was  calm, 
persuasive,  and  coherent.  He  was  simply  a  high-minded,  unselfish, 
belated  Covenanter;  a  man  whom  Sir  Walter  Scott  might  have 
drawn,  but  whom  such  writers  as  Nicolay  and  Hay,  for  instance, 
have  utterly  failed  to  delineate.  To  describe  him  in  their  words  as 
'clean  but  coarse'  is  curiously  wide  of  the  mark;  he  had  no  more 
of  coarseness  than  was  to  be  found  in  Habakkuk  Mucklewrath  or 
in  George  Eliot's  Adam  Bede;  he  had,  on  the  contrary,  that  religious 
elevation  which  is  itself  a  kind  of  refinement;  the  quality  one  may 
see  expressed  in  many  a  venerable  Quaker  face  at  yearly  meeting. 
Coarseness  absolutely  repelled  him;  he  was  so  strict  as  to  the  de 
meanor  of  his  men  that  his  band  was  always  kept  small,  while  that 
of  Lane  was  large ;  he  had  little  humor,  and  none  of  the  humorist's 
temptation  toward  questionable  conversation." 

On  one  of  his  Boston  visits,  Brown  also  met  the  Rev.  James 
Freeman  Clarke  at  Senator  Sumner's  residence,  according 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    327 

to  Mr.  Clarke,42  where  Brown  begged  to  see  the  coat  worn 
by  the  Senator  when  he  was  attacked,  and  "  looked  at  it  as  a 
devotee  would  contemplate  the  relic  of  a  saint."  This  was  his 
only  recorded  meeting  with  the  victim  of  Preston  Brooks's  as 
sault,  the  news  of  which  had  so  stirred  Brown  and  his  men 
prior  to  the  Pottawatomie  murders. 

From  Philadelphia,  John  Brown  and  John,  Jr.,  made  a  brief 
visit  to  New  Haven  and  New  York;  at  the  latter  place  the 
well-known  Gibbons  and  Hopper  families,  prominent  among 
the  anti-slavery  Quakers,  were  now  assisting  him.  Thence 
they  went  direct  to  North  Elba,  on  what  was  to  have  been  a 
farewell  visit  prior  to  the  risking  of  their  lives,  arriving  on 
March  23. 43  By  April  2  they  were  at  Gerrit  Smith's,  again 
under  way,  and  found  Mr.  Smith  as  encouraging  as  usual. 
After  a  day  spent  in  discussing  the  Virginia  plan,  they  left  for 
Rochester,  where  they  separated  on  April  5,  Brown  heading 
for  St.  Catherine's,  Canada,  where  he  arrived  on  the  7th  in 
company  with  his  colored  helper,  J.  W.  Loguen.44  Here  he 
met  by  appointment  a  remarkable  negro  woman,  Harriet 
Tubman,  known  as  the  "  Moses  of  her  People,"  whom  he  now 
relied  upon  to  work  for  him  among  the  escaped  slaves  then 
living  in  large  numbers  in  Canada  West,  as  he  later  hoped 
that  she  would  be  a  chief  guide  to  the  North  of  the  slaves  he 
wished  to  free  in  the  neighborhood  of  Harper's  Ferry.  Of 
her  Brown  wrote  that  she  was  "the  most  of  a  man,  naturally, 
that  I  ever  met  with."  Well  might  she  win  his  admiration, 
for  her  exploits  in  leading  runaway  slaves  to  freedom,  at  the 
risk  of  her  own  life,  form  one  of  the  most  moving  and  thrilling 
stories  of  the  entire  struggle  against  slavery. 

At  this  time  there  were  some  thirty  to  forty  thousand 
colored  people  in  Upper  Canada,  and  about  twelve  hundred  in 
Toronto,  some  of  them  free-born  and  in  good  circumstances; 
a  great  majority,  "freight"  of  the  Underground  Railroad.45 
At  Buxton,  near  the  shore  of  Lake  Erie,  was  the  "Elgin  Asso 
ciation,"  a  model  colony  for  escaped  slaves;  and  not  far  from 
this  was  Chatham,  chief  town  of  the  County  of  Kent,  also  a 
favorite  place  for  the  colored  men  who  had  found  under  the 
British  flag  the  personal  liberty  denied  them  under  the  stars 
and  stripes.  Here  were  some  well-to-do  colored  farmers  and 
mechanics,  who  had  established  a  good  school,  Wilberforce 


328  JOHN  BROWN 

Institute,  for  the  education  of  their  children,  several  churches 
and  a  newspaper  of  their  own.46  Brown  soon  made  up  his  mind 
that  this  would  be  the  best  place  for  the  convention  of  his  fol 
lowers  upon  which  he  had  now  set  his  heart.  He  was  not  will 
ing  to  commence  his  raid  upon  slavery  without  some  formal 
ity.  Just  as  he  had  drawn  up  regular  by-laws  for  his  Kansas 
company  to  sign,  so  he  now  wished  to  inaugurate  his  move 
ment  only  with  a  certain  ceremonial.  It  would  have  been 
cheaper  and  easier  to  have  gone  direct  to  the  scene  of  action 
in  Virginia,  but  his  mind  was  set  on  his  convention,  upon 
which  he  also  counted  to  draw  to  his  enterprise  some,  if  not 
many,  of  the  escaped  slaves  in  Canada  West. 

His  visit  to  St.  Catherine's  with  J.  W.  Loguen  was,  there 
fore,  in  the  nature  of  a  reconnoissance.  It  lasted  a  trifle  less 
than  three  weeks,  and  included  a  trip  to  Ingersoll,  Chatham, 
and  probably  to  other  near-by  points.  Neither  the  letters  now 
available  nor  Brown's  memorandum-book  of  1858  have  re 
corded  any  details  of  his  movements.  But  his  pen  was  ever 
busy,  and  the  recruits  for  his  convention  were  gradually 
enlisted,  among  them  a  colored  physician,  Dr.  Martin  R. 
Delany,  who  subsequently  served  in  the  colored  volunteers, 
with  the  rank  of  major,  during  the  Civil  War.  To  see  this  able 
man,  Brown  went  three  times  to  Chatham  47  before  finding 
him,  refusing  on  the  first  two  occasions  to  leave  his  name  or 
address.  To  him  Brown  stated  that  it  was  men  he  wanted,  not 
money,  and  Dr.  Delany  promised  to  be  on  hand  at  the  Chat 
ham  convention  and  to  bring  others  as  well.  Finally,  Brown 
was  ready  to  lead  to  Canada  the  "flock  of  sheep"  he  had  win 
tered  at  Springdale,  to  which  place  he  journeyed  by  way  of 
Chicago.  He  arrived  at  Mr.  Maxson's  home  the  25th  of  April, 
and  two  days  later  was  ready  to  start,  as  he  wrote  on  that  day 
to  his  family. 

He  found  the  band  of  conspirators  reinforced  by  George  B. 
Gill,  a  native  of  Iowa,  and  Stewart  Taylor,  a  young  Canadian, 
who  responded  to  his  name  at  the  final  roll-call  in  Harper's 
Ferry  and  there  lost  his  life.  Gill,  a  man  of  education  and  some 
literary  ability,  had  known  Brown  in  previous  enterprises,  had 
been  in  Kansas  and  introduced  Taylor  to  John  Brown.  Two 
other  notable  accessions  were  the  brothers  Coppoc,  Barclay 
and  Edwin,  who  also  participated  in  the  final  raid,  much  to 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A   POSTPONEMENT    329 

the  grief  of  their  Quaker  mother,  whose  quaint  and  fast- 
decaying  house  may  still  be  seen  in  Springdale.  A  woman  of 
marked  intelligence,  a  strong  Abolitionist,  she  had  herself  in 
stilled  into  the  minds  of  her  sons  that  hatred  of  slavery  which 
had  led  Barclay  to  Kansas  in  1857,  to  aid  in  making  it  a  free 
State,  and  resulted  in  Edwin's  giving  up  his  life  on  the  scaffold 
with  that  pure  faith  and  calm  resignation  naturally  associated 
with  the  Quaker  training.48  The  Coppocs  were  not  ready  to  go 
to  Chatham,  and  so  did  not  figure  in  the  convention,  as  did  the 
men  who  had  boarded  at  Mr.  Maxson's.  These  John  Brown 
found  still  harmonious,  despite  some  occasional  friction,  to 
be  expected,  perhaps,  among  vigorous  men  of  strong,  restless 
character,  cooped  up  in  one  small  farmhouse.  Leeman  had 
given  Owen  Brown  the  greatest  concern  of  all,49  and  Tidd  had 
laid  himself  open  to  a  grave  charge  by  the  father  of  a  Quaker 
maiden  resident  not  far  away.50  But  aside  from  this,  there 
seems  to  have  been  genuine  regret  at  the  leaving  of  this  body 
of  vigorous  young  men  who  had  done  so  much  to  enliven  and 
entertain  the  neighborhood ;  several  of  them  kept  up  a  lengthy 
correspondence  with  friends  in  Springdale  up  to  the  hour  of 
the  tragedy  which  gave  them  a  place  in  history.  Certainly, 
Brown  could  not  complain  of  the  spirit  of  his  followers,  when 
he  rejoined  them.  Stevens  wrote  to  his  sister  on  April  8:  "I 
am  ready  to  give  up  my  life  for  the  oppressed  if  need  be.  I 
hope  I  shall  have  your  good  will  and  sympathy  in  this  glorious 
cause."  51  Leeman  rejoiced  that  he  was  "warring  with  slav 
ery  the  greatest  Curse  that  ever  infested  America."  Richard 
Realf's  and  John  E.  Cook's  letters  are  in  a  similar  strain. 

Leaving  Springdale  with  nine  of  the  men,  shortly  before 
noon  on  the  27th,  Brown  and  his  followers  took  a  three  o'clock 
train  for  West  Liberty,  and  arrived  at  Chicago  at  five  the  next 
morning.  For  breakfast  they  went  to  the  Massasoit  House, 
only  to  be  told  that  one  of  their  number,  the  negro,  Richard 
Richardson,  could  not  be  served  with  them.  True  to  their 
belief  that  all  men  were  created  free  and  equal,  and  to 
their  comradeship,  they  marched  out  of  the  hotel,  Brown  at 
their  head,  and  soon  found  another  hostelry,  the  Adams  House, 
at  which  the  color-line  was  not  drawn.52  Leaving  Chicago  at 
four-thirty,  the  ten  were  in  Detroit  at  six  o'clock  on  the  morn 
ing  of  Thursday,  April  29,  and  were  breakfasting  at  the  Villa 


33o  JOHN  BROWN 

Tavern,  Chatham,  by  nine  o'clock.  "Ten  persons  begin  to 
board  with  Mr.  Barber  29th  April  at  Dinner.  Three  others 
began  May  1st  at  Breakfast,"  Brown's  memorandum-book 
records.  He  himself  made  his  headquarters  with  James  M. 
Bell,  a  colored  man.  "Here,"  wrote  Richard  Realf  to  Dr. 
H.  C.  Gill  at  Springdale,53 

"we  intend  to  remain  till  we  have  perfected  our  plans,  which  will 
be  in  about  ten  days  or  two  weeks,  after  which  we  start  for  China. 
Yesterday  and  this  morning  we  have  been  very  busy  in  writing  to 
Gerrit  Smith  and  Wendell  Phillips  and  others  of  like  kin  to  meet 
us  in  this  place  on  Saturday,  the  8th  of  May,  to  adopt  our  Constitu 
tion,  decide  a  few  matters  and  bid  us  goodbye.  Then  we  start.  .  .  . 
The  signals  and  mode  of  writing  are  (the  old  man  informs  me)  all 
arranged.  .  .  .  Remember  me  to  all  who  know  our  business,  but  to 
all  others  be  as  dumb  as  death." 

Despite  Brown's  admonition  to  his  men  to  write  no  letters 
while  here,  John  E.  Cook  was  another  who  corresponded 
freely  with  friends  in  Springdale;  to  two  young  women  he 
observed 54  that  only  one  thing  kept  him 

"from  being  absolutely  unhappy,  and  that  is  the  consciousness  that 
I  am  in  the  path  of  duty.  I  long  for  the  loth  of  May  to  come.  I  am 
anxious  to  leave  this  place,  to  have  my  mind  occupied  with  the  great 
work  of  our  mission.  .  .  .  Through  the  dark  gloom  of  the  future  I 
fancy  I  can  almost  see  the  dawning  light  of  Freedom ;  .  .  .  that  I 
can  almost  hear  the  swelling  anthem  of  Liberty  rising  from  the  mil 
lions  who  have  but  just  cast  aside  the  fetters  and  the  shackles  that 
bound  them.  But  ere  that  day  arrives,  I  fear  that  we  shall  hear  the 
crash  of  the  battle  shock  and  see  the  red  gleaming  of  the  cannon's 
lightning." 

Not  only  were  compromising  letters  of  this  kind  written 
freely  to  friends  and  relations,  but  similar  ones  received  were 
carried  about  by  all  the  men  and  kept  intact  up  to  the  raid 
itself. 

Finally,  the  8th  of  May,  the  day  for  the  opening  of  the 
convention,  arrived.  None  of  the  Eastern  backers  were  pre 
sent,  neither  Wendell  Phillips,  nor  Gerrit  Smith,  nor  F.  B. 
Sanborn,  and  no  white  men  save  Brown's  own  party.  This 
was  now  composed,  besides  himself,  of  Leeman,  Stevens,  Tidd, 
Gill,  Taylor,  Parsons,  Kagi,  MofTet,  Cook,  Realf  and  Owen 
Brown, —  twelve  in  all.  The  colored  men  were  thirty-four 
in  number,  among  them  Richard  Richardson,  Osborn  P. 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A   POSTPONEMENT    331 

Anderson,  James  H.  Harris,  afterwards  Congressman  from 
North  Carolina  and  Dr.  Delany.  Only  one  of  these  thirty- 
four,  O.  P.  Anderson,  actually  reached  the  firing-line.  The 
presiding  officer  was  William  Charles  Munroe,  pastor  of  a 
Detroit  colored  church,  and  the  secretary  was  John  H.  Kagi.56 
There  were  really  two  distinct  conventions.  The  first,  a  "  Pro 
visional  Constitutional  Convention,"  met  on  Saturday,  May  8, 
at  ten  in  the  morning,  in  a  frame  school-building  on  Princess 
Street,  the  remaining  sessions  being  held  in  the  First  Baptist 
Church  and  in  "  No.  3  Engine  House,"  which  had  been  erected 
by  some  colored  men,  who  also  formed  the  fire-company.  In 
order  to  mislead  any  one  who  might  inquire  the  meaning  of 
these  assemblages,  it  was  stated  that  they  were  for  the  pur 
pose  of  organizing  a  Masonic  lodge  among  the  colored  people. 
After  the  election  of  officers,  on  motion  of  Dr.  Delany,  John 
Brown  arose  to  state  at  length  the  object  of  the  permanent 
convention  and  the  plan  of  action  to  follow  it.  Dr.  Delany 
and  others  spoke  in  favor  of  both  projects,  and  they  were 
agreed  to  by  general  assent. 

In  his  testimony  before  the  Mason  Committee,  early  in 
1860,  Richard  Realf  thus  set  forth  the  substance  of  the  leader's 
speech : 56 

"  John  Brown,  on  rising,  stated  that  for  twenty  or  thirty  years  the 
idea  had  possessed  him  like  a  passion  of  giving  liberty  to  the  slaves. 
He  stated  immediately  thereafter,  that  he  made  a  journey  to  Eng 
land  in  1 85 1,  in  which  year  he  took  to  the  international  exhibition 
at  London,  samples  of  wool  from  Ohio,  during  which  period  he  made 
a  tour  upon  the  European  continent,  inspecting  all  fortifications, 
and  especially  all  earth-work  forts  which  he  could  find,  with  a  view, 
as  he  stated,  of  applying  the  knowledge  thus  gained,  with  modifica 
tions  and  inventions  of  his  own,  to  such  a  mountain  warfare  as  he 
thereafter  spoke  upon  in  the  United  States.  John  Brown  stated, 
moreover,  that  he  had  not  been  indebted  to  anybody  for  the  sug 
gestion  of  that  plan ;  that  it  arose  spontaneously  in  his  own  mind ; 
that  through  a  series  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  years  it  had  gradually 
formed  and  developed  itself  into  shape  and  plan." 

After  telling  of  his  studies  of  Roman  warfare,  of  the  success 
ful  opposition  to  the  Romans  of  the  Spanish  chieftains,  of  the 
successes  of  Schamyl,  the  Circassian  chief,  and  of  Toussaint 
L'Ouverture  in  Hayti,  and  of  his  own  familiarity  with  Haytian 
conditions,  Brown  spoke  of  his  belief  that, 


332  JOHN  BROWN 

"upon  the  first  intimation  of  a  plan  formed  for  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves,  they  would  immediately  rise  all  over  the  Southern 
States.  He  supposed  that  they  would  come  into  the  mountains  to 
join  him,  where  he  proposed  to  work,  and  that  by  flocking  to  his 
standard  they  would  enable  him  (by  making  the  line  of  mountains 
which  cuts  diagonally  through  Maryland  and  Virginia  down  through 
the  Southern  States  into  Tennessee  and  Alabama,  the  base  of  his 
operations)  to  act  upon  the  plantations  on  the  plains  lying  on  each 
side  of  that  range  of  mountains,  and  that  we  should  be  able  to  es 
tablish  ourselves  in  the  fastnesses,  and  if  any  hostile  action  (as 
would  be)  were  taken  against  us,  either  by  the  militia  of  the  separate 
States  or  by  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  we  purposed  to  defeat 
first  the  militia,  and  next,  if  it  were  possible,  the  troops  of  the  United 
States,  and  then  organize  the  freed  blacks  under  this  provisional 
constitution,  which  would  carve  out  for  the  locality  of  its  juris 
diction  all  that  mountainous  region  in  which  the  blacks  were  to 
be  established  and  in  which  they  were  to  be  taught  the  useful  and 
mechanical  arts,  and  to  be  instructed  in  all  the  business  of  life. 
Schools  were  also  to  be  established,  and  so  on.  That  was  it.  ... 
The  negroes  were  to  constitute  the  soldiers.  John  Brown  expected 
that  all  the  free  negroes  in  the  Northern  States  would  immediately 
flock  to  his  standard.  He  expected  that  all  the  slaves  in  the  South 
ern  States  would  do  the  same.  He  believed,  too,  that  as  many  of  the 
free  negroes  in  Canada  as  could  accompany  him,  would  do  so.  ... 
The  slaveholders  were  to  be  taken  as  hostages,  if  they  refused  to  let 
their  slaves  go.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  they  were  to  be 
killed ;  they  were  not  to  be.  They  were  to  be  held  as  hostages  for 
the  safe  treatment  of  any  prisoners  of  John  Brown's  who  might  fall 
into  the  hands  of  hostile  parties.  .  .  .  All  the  non-slaveholders 
were  to  be  protected.  Those  who  would  not  join  the  organization  of 
John  Brown,  but  who  would  not  oppose  it,  were  to  be  protected; 
but  those  who  did  oppose  it,  were  to  be  treated  as  the  slaveholders 
themselves.  .  .  .  Thus,  John  Brown  said  that  he  believed,  a  suc 
cessful  incursion  could  be  made ;  that  it  could  be  successfully  main 
tained  ;  that  the  several  slave  States  could  be  forced  (from  the  posi 
tion  in  which  they  found  themselves)  to  recognize  the  freedom  of 
those  who  had  been  slaves  within  the  respective  limits  of  those 
States;  that  immediately  such  recognitions  were  made,  then  the 
places  of  all  the  officers  elected  under  this  provisional  constitution 
became  vacant,  and  new  elections  were  to  be  made.  Moreover,  no 
salaries  were  to  be  paid  to  the  office-holders  under  this  constitution. 
It  was  purely  out  of  that  which  we  supposed  to  be  philanthropy  — 
love  for  the  slave." 

After  this  address,  John  Brown  presented  a  plan  of  organ 
ization,  entitled  "Provisional  Constitution  and  Ordinances 
for  the  People  of  the  United  States,"  and  moved  the  read- 


'A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    333 

ing  of  it.    To  this  there  was  objection  until  an  oath  of  se 
crecy  was  taken  by  each  member  of  the  convention.  An  oath 
being  moved,  John  Brown  arose  and  informed  the  convention 
that  he  had  conscientious  scruples  about  taking  any  oath; 
that  all  he  desired  was  a  promise  that  any  person  who  there 
after  divulged  any  of  the  proceedings  "agreed  to  forfeit  the 
protection  which  that  organization  could  extend  over  him." 
Nevertheless,  the  oath  was  voted  and  the  president  adminis 
tered  the  obligation.    Thereupon  the  proposed  Constitution 
was  read,  and  after  debate  on  one  article,  the  forty-sixth,  it 
was  unanimously  adopted.  The  afternoon  session  was  brief, 
being  occupied  solely  with  signing  the   Constitution,  "con 
gratulatory  remarks"  by  Dr.  Delany  and  Thomas  M.  Kin- 
nard  and  final  adjournment.  At  the  evening  session  the  con 
vention  was  a  new  body,  —  that  called  by  the  Constitution 
adopted  by  the  "Provisional  Convention,"  "for  the  purpose 
of  electing  officers  to  fill  the  offices  specially  established  and 
named  by  said  Constitution."   With   the  same  officers,  the 
new  convention  appointed  a  committee  to  make  nominations. 
Upon  its  failing  to  do  so  promptly,   the   convention  itself 
elected  John  Brown  Commander-in-Chief,  and  John  H.  Kagi, 
Secretary  of  War.    On  Monday,  May  10,  the  balloting  was 
resumed.   Realf  was  made  Secretary  of  State,  George  B.  Gill, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,   Owen   Brown,   Treasurer,   and 
Osborn  P.  Anderson  and  Alfred  M.  Ellsworth,  members  of 
Congress.   After  the  position  of  President  had  been  declined 
by  or  for  two  colored  men,  the  filling  of  this  and  other  vacan 
cies  was  left  to  a  committee  of  fifteen,  headed  by  John  Brown. 
It  is  not  of  record,  however,  that  the  vacancies  were  ever 
filled. 

If,  after  a  lapse  of  fifty  years,  it  seems  at  first  as  if  the  Con 
stitution  and  the  entire  proceeding  belonged  to  the  domain 
of  the  mock  Springdale  legislature,  the  earnestness  and  seri 
ousness  of  the  Chatham  proceedings  cannot  be  denied,  so  far 
as  the  moving  spirits  were  concerned.  Some  of  the  men  doubt 
less  signed  without  much  consideration;  but  to  the  colored 
men,  at  least,  it  seemed  as  if  freedom  from  bondage  were 
really  in  sight  for  their  enslaved  brethren.  Since  Brown  was 
able  to  overrule  the  objections  of  practical  men  like  Gerrit 
Smith  and  George  L.  Stearns,  it  is,  of  course,  not  to  be  won- 


334  JOHN  BROWN 

dered  at  if  the  little  gathering  in  Chatham  accepted  at  its  face 
value  the  extraordinary  document  which  John  Brown  laid 
before  them.  They  could  but  applaud  the  admirably  written 
preamble : " 

"Whereas,  Slavery,  throughout  its  entire  existence  in  the  United 
States  is  none  other  than  a  most  barbarous,  unprovoked,  and 
unjustifiable  War  of  one  portion  of  its  citizens  upon  another  por 
tion;  the  only  conditions  of  which  are  perpetual  imprisonment,  and 
hopeless  servitude  or  absolute  extermination;  in  utter  disregard 
and  violation  of  those  eternal  and  self-evident  truths  set  forth  in 
our  Declaration  of  Independence:  Therefore,  we  CITIZENS  of  the 
UNITED  STATES,  and  the  OPPRESSED  PEOPLE,  who,  by 
a  RECENT  DECISION  of  the  SUPREME  COURT  ARE  DE 
CLARED  to  have  NO  RIGHTS  WHICH  the  WHITE  MAN  is 
BOUND  to  RESPECT;  TOGETHER  WITH  ALL  OTHER 
PEOPLE  DEGRADED  by  the  LAWS  THEREOF,  DO,  for 
the  TIME  BEING  ORDAIN  and  ESTABLISH  for  OUR 
SELVES  the  FOLLOWING  PROVISIONAL  CONSTITUTION 
and  ORDINANCES,  the  BETTER  to  PROTECT  our  PER 
SONS,  PROPERTY,  LIVES,  and  LIBERTIES:  and  to  GOVERN 
our  ACTIONS." 

This  statement,  in  its  definition  of  slavery  as  war,  is  the  key 
note  to  Brown's  philosophy,  and  explains  better  than  anything 
else  why  it  was  consistent  with  his  devout  religious  charac 
ter  for  him  to  kill,  and  to  plunder  for  supplies  in  Kansas,  and 
to  take  up  arms  against  slavery  itself.  There  was  for  him  no 
such  thing  as  peace  so  long  as  there  were  chains  upon  a  single 
slave;  and  he  was,  therefore,  at  liberty  to  plot  and  intrigue,  to 
prepare  for  hostilities,  without  regard  to  public  order  or  the 
civil  laws.  Passing  beyond  the  preamble,  the  Constitution  * 
suggests  the  word  "insane,"  which  the  historian  Von  Hoist 
applies  to  certain  of  its  provisions.  It  actually  contemplates 
not  merely  the  government  of  forces  in  armed  insurrection 
against  sovereign  States  and  opposed  to  the  armies  of  the 
United  States,  but  actually  goes  so  far  as  to  establish  courts, 
a  regular  judiciary  and  a  Congress.  As  if  that  were  not 
enough,  it  provides  for  schools  for  that  same  training  of  the 
freed  slaves  in  manual  labor  which  is  to-day  so  widely  hailed 
as  the  readiest  solution  of  the  negro  problem.  Churches,  too, 
were  to  be  "  established  as  soon  as  may  be,"  -  as  if  anything 

*  See  Appendix. 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    335 

could  be  more  inconsistent  with  the  fundamental  plan  of 
breaking  the  forces  up  into  small  bands  hidden  in  mountain 
fastnesses,  subsisting  as  well  as  possible  off  the  land,  and  prob 
ably  unable  to  communicate  with  one  another.  At  this  and 
at  other  points  the  whole  scheme  forbids  discussion  as  a  prac 
tical  plan  of  government  for  such  an  uprising  as  was  to  be  car 
ried  out  by  a  handful  of  whites  and  droves  of  utterly  illiterate 
and  ignorant  blacks.  As  has  already  been  said,  it  is  still  a 
chief  indictment  of  Brown's  saneness  of  judgment  and  his 
reasoning  powers.  Von  Hoist,  one  of  his  greatest  admirers, 
describes  it  as  a  "piece  of  insanity,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
word,"  and  a  "confused  medley  of  absurd,  because  absolutely 
inapplicable,  forms.  "^  Yet  no  one  can  deny  that  in  many  of 
its  articles  the  Brown  Constitution  is  admirable  in  spirit,  as, 
for  instance,  in  the  provisions  for  the  enforcement  of  morality 
and  for  the  humanitarian  treatment  of  prisoners,  as  well  as  in 
other  measures  well  adapted  to  the  undertaking.  As  a  chart 
for  the  course  of  a  State  about  to  secede  from  the  Union  and 
to  maintain  itself  during  a  regular  revolution,  the  document 
was  also  not  without  its  admirable  features.  It  is  impossible, 
however,  as  regards  this  extraordinary  Constitution,  to  forget 
that  it  was  drawn  for  the  use  of  possibly  fifty  white  men  and 
hordes  of  escaping  slaves  fighting  for  their  lives,  not  on  the 
open  prairies  of  Kansas,  or  among  its  scattered  hamlets,  but 
in  well-populated  and  well-settled  portions  of  the  South. 

The  Constitution  simply  emphasizes  anew  Brown's  belief 
that  he  really  could  engage  in  warfare  against  slavery,  and 
could  keep  at  bay  the  United  States  army  while  doing  so ;  that 
with  a  handful  of  men  and  a  few  hundred  guns  and  mediaeval 
pikes,  he  could  grapple  and  shake  to  its  foundations  an  insti 
tution  the  actual  uprooting  of  which  nearly  cost  the  United 
States  Government  its  existence,  and  necessitated  the  sacrific 
ing  of  vast  treasure  and  an  enormous  number  of  human  lives. 
Brown  was  careful  even  to  provide  that  no  treaty  of  peace — 
presumably  either  with  the  United  States  or  the  several  South 
ern  States  —  could  be  ratified  save  by  his  President,  his 
Vice-President,  a  majority  of  his  Congress  and  of  his  Supreme 
Court,  and  of  the  general  officers  of  the  army ;  that  is,  his  half- 
company  of  officers  was  to  be  considered  equal  as  a  treaty- 
making  power  with  a  great  nation  and  its  coordinate  parts !  It 


336  JOHN  BROWN 

is  best,  therefore,  not  to  attempt  to  analyze  the  Chatham 
stitution,  but  to  admire  its  wording  and  its  composition,  and 
lay  it  aside  as  a  temporary  aberration  of  a  mind  that  in  its  other 
manifestations  defies  successful  classification  as  unhinged  or 
altogether  unbalanced.  Fanatical,  Brown's  mind  was ;  concen 
trated  on  one  idea  to  the  danger-point,  most  alienists  would 
probably  agree;  but  still  it  remained  a  mind  capable  of  ex 
pressing  itself  with  rare  clearness  and  force,  focussing  itself 
with  intense  vigor  on  the  business  in  hand,  and  going  straight 
to  the  end  in  view. 

One  point '  of  the  Constitution  remains  to  be  considered. 
Brown  maintained  at  his  trial  that  he  had  not  sought  to  over 
throw  the  United  States  Government  or  that  of  Virginia ;  the 
Chatham  Constitution  was  cited  against  him.  A  biographer, 
R.  J.  Hinton,  insisted59  that  Brown  was  justified  in  his  posi 
tion  by  Article  XLVI  of  the  Constitution,  which  reads:  "The 
foregoing  Articles  shall  not  be  construed  so  as  in  any  way 
to  encourage  the  overthrow  of  any  State  Government  or  of  the 
General  Government  of  the  United  States:  and  look  to  no 
dissolution  of  the  Union  but  simply  to  Amendment  and  Repeal. 
And  our  flag  shall  be  the  same  that  our  Fathers  fought  under 
in  the  Revolution."  This  was  the  only  article  challenged  at 
Chatham,  and  one  vote  was  cast  for  the  motion  to  strike  it  out. 
Accepting  it  as  a  disclaimer  of  hostility  to  the  various  govern 
ments  only  increases  the  difficulty.  It  then  appears  that 
he  was  ready  to  oppose,  and  if  necessary  to  kill,  troops  of  the 
United  States,  and  to  create  a  civil  government  over  certain 
portions  of  its  territory,  as  the  best  way  of  inducing  the  United 
States  Government  to  adopt  his  view  of  the  slavery  question. 
The  radical  Abolitionists  openly  worked  for  division  by 
peaceful  means  and  refused  to  make  use  of  their  rights  as 
citizens;  John  Brown  sought  to  oppose  the  authority  of  the 
Union  by  force  of  arms,  while  denying  that  any  one  could  con 
strue  his  actions  as  treason  or  disloyalty. 

A  definite  and  immediate  result  of  the  Chatham  conven 
tion  was  the  complete  exhaustion  of  Brown's  treasury.  His 
Boston  friends  were  expecting  him  to  "turn  loose  his  flock" 
about  May  15,  but  the  day  before  that  he  was  still  at  Chat 
ham,  and  wrote  to  Mr.  Sanborn  asking  for  three  or  four 
hundred  dollars,  "without  delay. " 60  On  the  25th  he  wrote  to 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    337 

his  family  that  "we  are  completely  nailed  down  at  present 
for  want  of  funds,  and  we  may  be  obliged  to  remain  inactive 
for  months  yet,  for  the  same  reason.  You  must  all  learn  to  be 
patient — or,  at  least  I  hope  you  will."  61  Brown's  chagrin  at 
this  condition  of  affairs  was  intensified  by  the  needs  of  his  men. 
They  had  left  Chatham  on  May  1 1  and  gone  to  Cleveland 
and  near-by  Ohio  towns,  in  search  of  work  to  maintain  them 
temporarily  until  they  got  the  signal  to  reassemble.  Now, 
obtaining  work  even  in  the  most  humble  capacity  was  not 
easy  in  the  spring  of  1858,  when  the  country  had  not  yet  begun 
to  recover  from  the  great  financial  depression  of  the  previous 
fall.  To  Gill,  who  had  written  at  once  of  the  poor  outlook, — • 
there  were  two  thousand  men  out  of  work  in  Cleveland, — 
Brown  replied : 62 

"I  will  only  inquire  if  you,  any  of  you,  think  the  difficulties 
you  have  experienced,  so  far,  are  sufficient  to  discourage  a  man  ? 
.  .  .  /  and  three  others  were  in  exactly  such  a  fix  in  the  spring  of 
1817:  between  the  seaside  and  Ohio,  in  a  time  of  extreme  scarcity  of 
not  only  money,  but  of  the  greatest  distress  for  want  of  provisions, 
known  during  the  nineteenth  century.  .  .  .  We  are  here  [Realf, 
Kagi,  Richardson  and  Leeman  had  remained  in  Canada]  busy  get 
ting  information  and  making  other  preparations.  I  believe  no  time 
has  yet  been  lost.  Owing  to  the  panic  on  the  part  of  some  of  our 
Eastern  friends,  we  may  be  compelled  to  hold  on  for  months  yet. 
But  what  of  that?" 

Three  days  later,  Brown  expressed  his  satisfaction  that  all 
but  three  of  the  men  had  then  obtained  work  "to  stop  their 
board  bills."  63  He  had  received  only  fifteen  dollars  from  the 
East,  but  was  in  "hourly  expectation  of  help  sufficient  to  pay 
off  our  bills  here,  and  to  take  us  on  to  Cleveland  to  see  and 
advise  with  you."  He  was  compelled  to  say  in  this  letter  that: 

"such  has  been  the  effect  of  the  course  taken  by  F.  [Forbes]  that  I 
have  some  fears  that  we  shall  be  compelled  to  delay  further  action 
for  the  present.  ...  It  is  in  such  times  that  men  mark  themselves. 
'He  that  endureth  unto  the  end,' the  same  shall  get  his  reward. 
Are  our  difficulties  sufficient  to  make  us  give  up  one  of  the  noblest 
enterprises  in  which  men  were  ever  engaged?" 

The  difficulties  were  not  great  enough  to  make  any  of  the 
men  abandon  the  project  then,  though  some  were  indubi 
tably  in  straits  at  times.  Indeed,  some  of  them  actually 


338  JOHN  BROWN 

plotted  to  go  South  and  raid  by  themselves,  if  help  did  not 
soon  come.64  Cook  was  the  leader  in  this;  during  his  stay  in 
Cleveland  he  was  highly  indiscreet,  boasting  that  he  was  on  a 
secret  expedition ;  that  he  had  killed  five  men  in  Kansas ;  swag 
gering  openly  in  his  boarding-house,  and  revealing  much  to 
a  woman  acquaintance,  so  that  Realf  feared  that  if  the  expe 
dition  were  to  be  postponed,  the  greatest  danger  would  not 
be  from  Forbes,  but  from  Cook's  "rage  for  talking."  Richard 
Richardson  and  John  A.  Thomas,  another  colored  man,  who 
had  gone  to  Cleveland  with  Brown  and  Realf,  soon  returned  to 
Canada  in  fear  of  arrest,  and  are  not  thereafter  heard  from  in 
connection  with  Brown.65  Realf  later  went  to  New  York  to 
watch  Forbes,  and  to  plan  his  trip  to  England  to  raise  funds 
for  the  cause. 

John  Brown  himself  left  Chatham  on  May  29,  and  went  di 
rect  to  Boston,  after  having  been  there  just  a  month.66  He  had 
been  urged  by  Mr.  Stearns  to  meet  him  in  New  York,  to  dis 
cuss  the  question  of  the  arms  in  his  possession,  during  the  week 
beginning  May  16,  but  he  was  unable  to  do  so,  and  did  not  see 
any  of  the  Boston  friends  until  he  arrived  at  the  American 
House  on  May  31.  As  Brown  had  stated  to  his  men,  renewed 
activity  on  the  part  of  Forbes  had  filled  the  Boston  backers 
with  consternation.  Before  and  during  the  Chatham  conven 
tion,  Brown  was  writing  almost  daily  to  some  one  about  "  F.," 
as  he  referred  to  him  in  his  memorandum-book.  Mr.  Higgin- 
son  wrote  on  May  7  to  John  Brown,  from  Brattleboro,  protest 
ing  against  the  postponement  already  talked  of: 67 

DEAR  FRIEND 

Sanborn  wrote  an  alarming  letter  of  a  certain  H.  F.  who  wishes  to 
veto  our  veteran  friend's  project  entirely.  Who  the  man  is  I  hv.  no 
conception  —  but  I  utterly  protest  against  any  postponement.  // 
the  thing  is  postponed,  it  is  postponed  for  ever  —  for  H.  F.  can  do  as 
much  harm  next  year  as  this.  His  malice  must  be  in  some  way  put 
down  or  outwitted — &  after  the  move  is  once  begun,  his  plots  will 
be  of  little  importance.  I  believe  that  we  have  gone  too  far  to  go 
back  without  certain  failure  —  &  I  believe  our  friend  the  veteran 
will  think  so  too. 

This  was  Brown's  own  belief.  But  before  he  reached  Boston 
the  die  was  cast  against  him,  as  is  seen  from  this  note  of  Mr. 
Sanborn  to  Mr.  Higginson: 68 


tx 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    341 

Stearns  had  advanced  large  sums  to  the  Kansas  Committee, 
which  had  never  been  repaid,  asking  at  the  time  that  the 
arms  if  unused  should  come  back  to  him,  that  he  might  reim 
burse  himself  for  his  outlay.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
Kansas  Committee  had  agreed  to  this  by  formal  vote,  just 
after  Mr.  Stearns  had  paid  for  the  two  hundred  pistols  he  had 
purchased  of  the  Massachusetts  Arms  Company  for  Brown  out 
of  his  own  pocket,  but  in  the  name  of  the  Kansas  Committee. 
Mr.  Stearns  now  simply  exercised  this  option,  and  so  notified 
the  immediate  conspirators  verbally,  and  then  presented  all  the 
arms,  whose  possession  he  had  that  minute  assumed,  to  Brown. 
As  soon  as  possible  thereafter,  says  Mr.  Sanborn,  "the  busi 
ness  of  the  Kansas  Committee  was  put  in  such  shape  that  its 
responsibility  for  the  arms  in  Brown's  possession  should  no 
longer  fetter  his  friends  in  aiding  his  main  design."  72  When 
the  denouement  finally  came,  however,  the  public  and  press 
did  not  take  a  very  favorable  view  of  the  transaction ;  it  was  too 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  George  L.  Stearns,  the  benefac 
tor  of  the  Kansas  Committee,  and  George  L.  Stearns,  the  Chair 
man  of  that  Committee.  Again,  there  appear  to  have  been 
some  dissatisfied  members  of  the  Kansas  Committee  who  re 
mained  uninformed  of  the  transfer  of  the  arms  until  the  whole 
thing  came  out,  and  they  resented  the  charge  of  having  aided 
Brown  in  his  Virginia  foray.  Mr.  Sanborn  admits  that  "it  is 
still  a  little  difficult  to  explain  this  transaction  concerning  the 
arms  without  leaving  a  suspicion  that  there  was  somewhere  a 
breach  of  trust."  73 

To  a  recent  historian,  Rear- Admiral  F.  E.  Chadwick,  this 
incident  is  "not  a  pleasant  story  ;"74  he  accuses  the  Kansas 
Committee  and  Dr.  Howe  of  "duplicity"  and  "gross  prevari 
cation,"  the  latter  for  writing  to  Senator  Wilson  on  May  12: 

11 1  understand  perfectly  your  meaning.  No  countenance  has  been 
given  to  Brown  for  any  operation  outside  of  Kansas  by  the  Kansas 
Committee;'1  and  three  days  later:  " Prompt  measures  have  been 
taken  and  will  resolutely  be  followed  up  to  prevent  any  such  mon 
strous  perversion  of  a  trust  as  would  be  the  application  of  means 
raised  for  the  defence  of  Kansas  to  a  purpose  which  the  subscribers 
of  the  fund  would  disapprove  and  vehemently  condemn." 

Technically,  the  Committee  has  a  valid  defence.  Doubtless 
in  the  business  world,  and  especially  according  to  the  stand- 


342  JOHN  BROWN 

ards  of  certain  large  industrial  concerns  of  late  years,  the  Com 
mittee's  stratagem  is  quite  defensible  as  a  simple  way  out  of 
a  trying  difficulty,  and  an  easy  method  of  obtaining  for  Brown 
the  desired  arms.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  frankness  and 
straightforwardness  would  have  dictated  the  notifying  of  Sen 
ator  Wilson  that  the  arms  had  passed  into  the  possession  of 
individual  members  of  the  Committee,  which  would  not  there 
after  be  responsible  for  them  or  the  uses  made  of  them.  As 
it  is,  there  was  no  actual  recall  of  the  arms  from  Brown  what 
ever,  as  Senator  Wilson  was  permitted  to  believe,  save  a  purely 
nominal  one.  No  one,  says  Mr.  Sanborn,  suggested  that  they 
should  pass  out  of  Brown's  actual  possession.75  It  is  one  of 
those  unpleasant  episodes  which  so  often  happen  when  the 
business  of  individuals  and  of  organizations  to  which  they  be 
long  becomes  intertwined.  Had  Mr.  Stearns  not  been  Chair 
man  of  the  Kansas  Committee,  but  a  mere  outsider,  no  allega 
tion  of  breach  of  trust  could  have  lain  in  the  premises.  But 
even  this  admirable  man  sometimes  split  delicate  hairs  in  dis 
cussing  what  actually  happened  at  this  period.  Thus  he  later 
appeared  before  the  Mason  Committee  and  testified  that  John 
Brown  had  not  asked  for  the  two  hundred  Sharp's  rifles  in 
January,  1857,  —  the  time  that  Brown  was  beseeching  the  Na 
tional  Kansas  Committee  and  the  Boston  members  of  the 
Massachusetts  State  Committee  to  fit  out  his  proposed  "vol 
unteer  regular  company"  with  arms!  It  must  be  pointed  out, 
too,  that  the  decision  of  the  little  Boston  group,  after  giving 
Brown  the  five  hundred  dollars  and  arms,  in  1858,  to  know  no 
more  of  his  plans,  is  the  first  sign  of  the  effort  to  evade  respon 
sibility  which  became  so  apparent  after  the  raid.  They  had  en 
couraged  him  to  attack  slavery  in  the  mountains  of  the  South, 
giving  him  money  and  arms  to  do  it  with,  and  sanctioned  his 
going  ahead , — only  they  said : ' '  Do  not  tell  us  the  details  of  i t. " 
This  attitude  inevitably  suggests  that  of  those  modern  corpora 
tion  directors  who  are  perfectly  aware  that  their  agents,  the 
executives  of  the  company,  are  using  the  funds  of  the  stock 
holders  illegally,  but  salve  their  consciences  by  never  broach 
ing  the  matter  in  or  out  of  the  board-room,  or  examining  the 
accounts.  It  further  lays  them  open  to  the  criticism  of  being 
ready  to  help  others  to  assail  a  wrong,  but  of  being  themselves 
unwilling  to  take  the  full  consequences  of  their  acts. 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    343 

As  for  the  arms  themselves,  they  were  at  this  time  in  Ohio.78 
After  Brown  had  brought  them  to  Springdale,  they  were 
shipped  from  West  Liberty,  with  the  two  hundred  revolvers 
bought  by  Mr.  Stearns,  by  freight  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  at  Con- 
neaut,  Ashtabula  County,  Ohio.  By  him  they  had  been  trans 
ported  to,  and  concealed  in,  the  village  of  Cherry  Valley,  where 
they  were  stored  in  the  furniture  ware-rooms  of  King  Brothers. 
Here,  for  safety's  sake,  they  were  covered  by  a  lot  of  ready- 
made  coffins  awaiting  sale.  The  visit  of  a  tax  assessor  made 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  nervous  about  them,  but  the  arms  remained 
here  until  early  in  May,  when,  by  his  father's  directions,  they 
were  moved  by  night  to  the  barn  of  a  farmer  named  William 
Coleman,  in  the  adjoining  township  of  Wayne,  who  helped 
him  to  build  by  night  a  little  store-room  in  his  haymow.  Some 
of  the  arms  and  the  powder  were  for  a  time  in  the  sugar-house 
of  E.  Alexander  Fobes,  a  brother-in-law  of  John  Brown,  Jr. 
From  here  they  were  moved  in  1859  to  the  scene  of  action.  On 
May  I,  1858,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  wrote  to  his  father  that  he 
had  been  examining  the  arms,  and  that  he  had  them  "nearly 
all  packed  and  ready  to  start  on  Monday  next  should  nothing 
happen."  He  had  examined  the  smaller  "articles  of  freight," 
and  found  that  the  oil  on  the  locks  and  elsewhere  had  become 
"so  gummy"  as  to  render  the  arms  useless  until  thoroughly 
overhauled  and  cleaned.77 

Rejoicing  in  his  ownership  of  the  arms  and  his  fresh  money- 
supply,  Brown  swallowed  his  disappointment  over  the  post 
ponement  of  the  raid  and  went  straight  to  North  Elba,  where 
he  was  on  June  9.  This  time  there  was  no  indecision  about 
his  movements  or  hesitancy  about  returning  to  Kansas.  He 
was  in  Cleveland  by  June  20,  for  on  the  next  day  he  called  his 
scattered  followers  together  and,  notifying  them  of  the  deci 
sion  of  the  Boston  friends,  gave  them  what  money  he  could 
and  bade  them  be  true  to  the  cause.78  A  general  break-up 
ensued.  Realf,  as  already  related,  was  to  go  to  New  York  and 
watch  Forbes;  Owen  went  to  his  brother  Jason's  at  Akron, 
Ohio,  while  Kagi  and  Tidd  left  that  same  day  with  Brown  for 
Kansas  by  way  of  Chicago.  Leeman  and  Taylor  first  went 
with  Owen,  and  then  drifted  about  in  Ohio  and  Illinois,  while 
Parsons  spent  the  summer  on  Fobes's  farm,  where  the  arms 
were  concealed,  and  then  returned  to  his  home  at  Byron,  Illi- 


344  JOHN  BROWN 

nois.79  Moffet  worked  his  way  home  to  Iowa,  after  staying  for 
some  time  in  Cleveland,  while  Gill  and  Stevens  went  back  to 
Springdale  on  their  way  to  Kansas,  where  they  later  joined 
John  Brown's  little  company.  To  Cook  was  assigned  the  diffi 
cult  and  responsible  task  of  going  to  Harper's  Ferry  to  live  as 
a  spy  in  the  enemy's  country,  an  outpost  stealthily  to  recon 
noitre  the  vicinity.  This  he  did  successfully,  arriving  there 
on  June  5,  i858.80 

By  this  delay  and  change  of  plan,  Brown  lost  five  of  his 
twelve  followers  who  took  part  in  the  Chatham  convention. 
Parsons  had  lost  his  zeal  for  the  venture  on  learning  of  the  plan 
to  attack  the  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry.81  He  had  not  calcu 
lated  on  a  direct  assault  on  the  United  States  Government, 
and  so  when  the  call  to  rejoin  Brown  reached  him  at  Council 
Bluff  sin  1859,  where  he  was,  en  route  to  Pike's  Peak,  he  heeded 
the  admonition  of  his  mother  which  came  with  it.  "They  are 
bad  men,"  she  wrote  him.  "You  have  got  away  from  them, 
now  keep  away  from  them."  Mr.  Parsons  has  an  excellent  war 
service  to  his  credit  as  a  commissioned  officer,  and  is  still  living 
at  Salina,  Kansas.  Moffet,  too,  was  probably  disaffected, 
though  it  was  claimed  for  him  by  his  sister,  in  1860,  that  "ob 
ligations  from  which  he  could  not  be  released  "  prevented  his 
rejoining  Brown.  Of  his  own  failure  to  reach  Harper's  Ferry, 
George  B.  Gill,  who  also  survives,  says:82 

11 1  was  on  my  way  to  Harper's  Ferry  at  the  time  of  the  premature 
blow  and  apparent  failure.  I  had  been  in  correspondence  with  Kagi 
and  knew  the  exact  time  to  be  on  hand  and  was  on  my  way  to  the 
cars  when  the  thrilling  news  came  that  the  blow  had  been  struck. 
Of  course  I  went  no  further.  I  had  been  sick  much  of  the  spring  and 
summer  previous  and  in  my  last  interview  with  the  old  man  I  would 
not  promise  to  follow  him  farther,  being  worn  out  physically  and  not 
feeling  any  more  sanguine  of  the  necessary  funds  being  raised,  and 
having  been  east  the  previous  year  on  a  wild  goose  chase  I  could  not 
see  the  necessity  of  going  further  at  present." 

Realf,  on  his  trip  to  England,  underwent  a  sea-change,  and 
after  the  raid  was  charged  with  treachery.  Richardson,  the 
colored  man,  did  not  reappear  from  Canada.  But  Cook,  Lee- 
man,  Tidd,  Owen  Brown,  Stevens,  Taylor  and  Kagi  followed 
their  leader  to  Harper's  Ferry,  whence  only  Tidd  and  Owen 
Brown  returned. 


A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT    345 

In  company,  then,  with  two  of  the  faithful  ones,  Brown 
reached  Chicago  on  June  22;  on  June  25  two  of  his  later  bio 
graphers  met  him  under  these  conditions  in  Lawrence:  "We 
were  at  supper,  on  the  25th  of  June,  1858,  at  a  hotel  in  Law- 
ence,  Kansas.  A  stately  old  man,  with  a  flowing  white  beard, 
entered  the  room  and  took  a  seat  at  the  public  table.  I  im 
mediately  recognized  in  the  stranger,  John  Brown.  Yet  many 
persons  who  had  previously  known  him  did  not  penetrate 
his  patriarchal  disguise.'*  Thus  wrote  Redpath.83  The  whole 
aspect  of  Brown  was  now  changed ;  the  long  gray  beard  famil 
iar  to  all  the  world  at  the  time  of  his  execution  concealed  the 
sharpness  of  his  chin,  the  thin  lips  and  the  resolute,  sharp  line 
of  the  mouth.  But  there  was  no  change  in  the  man.  On  Mon 
day,  June  28,  he  was  off  for  southern  Kansas,  where  he  reap 
peared  disguised  not  only  as  to  his  physiognomy  but  as  to  his 
name.  Thereafter  there  was  a  new  border  chief  in  southeast 
ern  Kansas,  —  Shubel  Morgan. 


CHAPTER  X 
SHUBEL  MORGAN,   WARDEN   OF  THE   MARCHES 

THE  Kansas  to  which  John  Brown  returned  in  June,  1858,  had 
made  distinct  progress  toward  the  realization  of  the  hopes 
of  the  Free  State  party.  In  October,  1857,  it  had  captured 
the  Territorial  Legislature,  which  met  on  January  4,  1858,  but 
it  had  abstained  from  voting  at  the  election  of  December  21 
on  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  because  the  only  alternative 
was  to  vote  "for  the  Constitution  with  slavery"  or  "for  the 
Constitution  with  no  slavery."  But  the  Constitution  with 
out  slavery  made  that  institution  perpetual  within  the  State, 
by  providing  for  the  maintenance  of  the  slaves  then  in  the 
Territory,  and  their  offspring,  and  specifically  declaring  that 
slaves  were  property.  The  "  Constitution-with-slavery  "  pro 
vision  was  carried  by  6266  votes  to  569,  owing  to  the  absten 
tion  of  the  Free  State  men;  2720  of  the  affirmative  votes  were 
proved  to  be  fraudulent.  Since  the  election  did  not  turn  upon 
the  Constitution  itself,  but  upon  the  issue  whether  the  Con 
stitution  with  or  without  slavery  should  be  adopted,  the  Free 
State  men,  Lane  in  particular,  had,  as  already  pointed  out, 
induced  the  Acting  Governor,  Stan  ton,  to  call  a  special  session 
of  the  Legislature  for  December  7,  which  promptly  ordered 
the  submission  of  the  entire  Lecompton  Constitution  to  the 
people.  When  this  was  done,  on  January  4,  the  pro-slavery 
men  abstained  from  the  polls.  No  less  than  10,226  votes  were 
cast  against  the  Constitution,  138  for  it  with  slavery,  and  24 
for  it  without  slavery.  Both  parties  joined  in  the  election  for 
officers  under  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  the  Free  State 
men  winning.  Of  the  6875  pro-slavery  votes,  2458  subse 
quently  proved  to  be  illegal; l  the  Free  State  men  chose  42 
out  of  53  members  of  the  Legislature.  George  W.  Smith, 
Free  State,  was  elected  Governor.  On  January  5,  the  old 
Topeka  Legislature  met  again  to  receive  a  message  from  its 
Governor,  Robinson,  asking  that  the  old  rump  State  organiza 
tion  be  kept  up,  although  the  Territorial  Legislature  was  now 


^     SHUBEL   MORGAN  347 

safely  Free  State.  In  his  message  to  this  body,  the  new  Acting 
Governor,  Denver,  who  had  succeeded  Stanton,  recommended 
that  all  legislation  of  importance  be  deferred  until  Congress 
should  act  upon  the  Lecompton  Constitution. 

When  that  document  was  submitted  to  Congress  by  the 
President,  on  February  2,  that  body  had  received  a  petition 
from  all  the  State  officers  chosen  under  this  Constitution,  ask 
ing  that  it  be  defeated.  While  Brown  was  collecting  his  funds 
in  the  East,  revealing  his  Virginia  plan  to  his  Boston  friends, 
and  preparing  for  the  Chatham  convention,  Congress  was 
struggling  with  this  Lecompton  issue,  which  was  not  decided 
until  April  30.  During  all  that  period  the  debate  had  aroused 
the  country,  and  wrought  Congress  itself  up  to  a  pitch  of  great 
excitement.  Even  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  author  of  the  Squat 
ter  Sovereignty  theory  to  which  all  of  Kansas's  misfortunes 
were  due,  opposed  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  Finally,  Con 
gress  passed  a  compromise  measure  known  as  the  English 
bill,  which  provided  that  Kansas  should  be  admitted  to  the 
Union  if,  on  resubmission,  a  majority  of  its  voters  approved 
the  Lecompton  Constitution.  This  was  emphatically  a  pro- 
slavery  victory.  In  order  to  bribe  the  voters  of  the  State  into 
accepting  the  Constitution  that  had  once  been  rejected  by 
them,  Congress  offered  to  give  to  the  new  State  two  sections 
of  land  in  each  township  for  school  purposes,  seventy-two 
sections  for  a  State  university,  and  ten  sections  for  public 
buildings,  in  all  five  and  a  half  million  acres;  also  all  the  salt 
springs,  not  exceeding  twelve  in  number,  and  six  sections  of 
land  with  each  spring;  and,  finally,  five  per  cent  of  all  the 
public  lands  for  State  roads.  No  such  bribe  had  ever  been 
offered  to  any  other  State;  if  it  should  not  be  accepted,  the  bill 
required  that  no  new  delegates  to  frame  a  Constitution 
should  be  chosen  until  Kansas  had  a  population  equalling  the 
ratio  of  representation  required  for  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  —  then  93,560  people.  Kansas  was  in  the 
throes  of  a  discussion  of  this  measure  when  John  Brown 
arrived,  for  the  date  set  for  the  vote  on  the  resubmitted  Con 
stitution  was  August  2.  He  had,  therefore,  the  satisfaction  of 
being  in  the  Territory  at  this  final  defeat  of  the  pro-slavery 
forces,  when  13,088  votes  were  cast,  11,300  of  them  against 
the  odious  Constitution.  Thereafter  Kansas  was  safe.  No 


348  JOHN  BROWN 

other  Constitution  was  framed  until  the  next  year;  but  the 
defeat  of  the  slavery  forces  was  beyond  all  dispute  and  final.2 

But  if  the  political  outlook  in  the  Territory  was  favorable 
to  the  Free  State  men,  there  had  been  in  southeastern  Kansas, 
particularly  in  Linn  and  Bourbon  counties,  a  recrudescence  of 
the  lawlessness  of  1856.  Indeed,  the  whole  Territory,  as  Brown 
entered  it,  was  still  ringing  with  one  of  the  most  atrocious 
crimes  in  the  annals  of  the  border  warfare,  to  which  reference 
has  already  been  made.  Charles  A.  Hamilton,  a  graduate  of 
the  University  of  Georgia,  later  a  colonel  in  the  Confederate 
army,  and  a  member  of  an  excellent  family,  had  boasted  that 
if  pro-slavery  men  could  not  make  headway  in  the  Territory, 
Abolitionists  should  not  live  there.  Crossing  the  Missouri 
boundary  on  May  19,  near  the  Trading  Post  in  Linn  County, 
he  captured  Free  State  men  wherever  he  found  them,  on  their 
wagons,  in  the  fields,  or  in  their  homes,  until  he  had  eleven 
reputable  citizens,  —  the  Rev.  B.  L.  Reed,  W.  E.  Stilwell, 
Asa  Hairgrove,  William  Hairgrove,  Amos  Hall,  William 
Colpetzer,  Michael  Robinson,  John  F.  Campbell,  Charles 
Snyder,  Patrick  Ross  and  Austin  Hall.  An  effort  was  made 
to  capture  Eli  Snyder,  a  blacksmith,  his  brother  and  a  young 
son,  Elias  Snyder,  but  they  fought  too  vigorously.  Lining  up 
his  eleven  prisoners  in  a  little  ravine,  Hamilton  placed  his 
thirty-odd  men  on  the  bank  above  them,  and  ordered  them 
to  aim  at  the  prisoners.  One  of  the  men,  Brockett,  who  had 
been  Pate's  lieutenant  at  the  battle  of  Black  Jack,  declined 
to  obey  Hamilton's  order  and  withdrew.  At  the  word  of 
command,  the  others  fired  at  the  unflinching  Free  State  men. 
To  make  sure  of  their  work,  the  brazen  and  brutal  murderers 
then  kicked  the  prostrate  men  and  finished  two  of  the  dying, 
Ross  and  Amos  Hall,  by  shooting  them  again.  Then  they 
made  off.  The  Snyders,  lying  in  the  bushes  near-by,  hearing 
the  shooting  and  groans,  were  afraid  to  move  lest  it  might  all 
be  a  ruse.  They  were  finally  summoned  by  Austin  Hall,  who, 
unwounded,  had  had  presence  of  mind  to  fall  with  the  others 
and  remain  rigid  when  kicked  by  a  ruffian  who  wished  to 
ascertain  if  he  still  breathed.  It  was  found  that  five  men, 
Campbell,  Colpetzer,  Ross,  Stilwell,  and  Robinson,  had  been 
killed.  The  remaining  five  survived  their  serious  wounds. 

Nothing  can  be  said  in  defence  of  this  crime.   None  of  the 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  349 

eleven  had  given  special  reason  for  Border  Ruffian  dislike. 
Hamilton  thought,  perhaps,  that  by  imitating  the  Pottawa- 
tomie  murders  of  John  Brown  he  could  at  one  blow  intimi 
date  southeastern  Kansas;  perhaps  he  believed  himself  the 
agent  of  the  Almighty  to  exterminate  these  men.  At  any  rate, 
he,  too,  killed  five,  as  had  Brown,  and  with  as  little  warning; 
the  consequences  —  the  stirring  up  of  the  worst  kind  of  bush 
whacking  strife — were  in  both  cases  the  same.3 

Soon  after  the  massacre,  two  hundred  Kansans,  led  by 
Sheriff  McDaniel,  Colonel  R.  B.  Mitchell  and  James  Mont 
gomery,  marched  to  West  Point,  Missouri,  from  which  place 
Hamilton  had  started.  The  murderers,  however,  had  timely 
warning  of  their  coming  and  escaped,  Montgomery's  advice 
to  surround  the  town  before  entering  it  being  disregarded.4 
Aktiough  occurring  some  distance  from  the  river  of  that  name, 
this  killing  has  always  been  known  as  the  Marais  des  Cygnes 
Massacre;  it  inspired  Whittier's  commemorative  poem,  "Le 
Marais  du  Cygne,"  published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for 
September,  1858.  In  justice  to  Hamilton  it  must  be  stated 
that  he  and  a  large  number  of  other  pro-slavery  settlers,  who 
were  in  Free  State  eyes  inimical  to  the  peace  and  progress  of 
the  communities  in  which  they  had  resided,  had  been  ordered 
by  James  Montgomery,  the  Free  State  leader,  to  leave  their 
homes  post-haste  and  flee  to  Missouri.  The  Marais  des  Cygnes 
Massacre  was  the  revenge  for  this  expulsion,  which  the  ma 
jority  of  the  Free  State  settlers  considered  wholly  warranted 
by  the  careers  of  those  expelled.  Hamilton  originally  headed 
a  band  of  five  hundred  Missourians.  All  but  Hamilton  and  his 
ignoble  thirty  were  dissuaded  from  entering  Kansas,  or  lost 
courage  when  they  reached  the  Territorial  line.  There  ensued 
after  the  massacre  a  week  of  extreme  lawlessness,  although 
Federal  troops  had  already  been  ordered  out  into  Bourbon 
County.  Montgomery  tried  to  burn  the  pro-slavery  town  of 
Fort  Scott,  and  there  were  grave  conditions,  indeed,  until 
Governor  Denver  personally  arrived  on  the  scene  in  June  and 
induced  both  sides  to  agree  to  a  treaty  of  peace.  Bygones  were 
to  be  bygones.  He  promised  to  remove  the  Federal  troops  from 
Fort  Scott  at  once ;  to  order  a  new  election  for  county  officials ; 
to  station  militia  along  the  border  in  order  to  prevent  invasion 
from  Missouri;  and  to  suspend  the  operation  of  old  writs,  if 


350  JOHN  BROWN 

Montgomery's  men  and  all  other  armed  bodies  would  with 
draw  from  the  field.  This  compact  was  religiously  adhered  to 
through  the  summer  and  fall. 

James  Montgomery  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  figures 
of  the  border  warfare.  He  was  thus  described  in  a  letter  to  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  in  1858 :5 

"In  conversation  he  talks  mildly  in  a  calm,  even  voice,  using  the 
language  of  a  cultivated,  educated  gentleman.  His  antecedents  are 
unexceptionable;  he  was  always  a  Free  State  man,  although  coming 
from  a  Slave  State,  where  he  was  noted  as  a  good  citizen  and  for  his 
mild,  even  temperament.  In  his  daily  conduct  he  maintains  the 
same  character  now;  but  when  in  action  and  under  fire,  he  displays 
a  daring  fearlessness,  untiring  perseverance,  and  an  indomitable 
energy  that  has  given  him  the  leadership  in  this  border  warfare." 

His  own  cabin  was  often  attacked  in  days  when  nobody 
who  had  caution  unbarred  his  door  to  a  visitor's  hail  without 
being  assured  as  to  the  ownership  of  the  voice.6  His  wife  was  a 
fit  companion  for  a  border  chieftain.  It  is  related  of  her  that 
she  had  the  indomitable  spirit,  if  not  the  culture,  of  her  hus 
band,  and  that  she  once  said:  "  I  do  get  plumb  tired  of  being 
shot  at,  but  I  won't  be  druv  out."  7  It  must  not  be  thought, 
however,  that  all  of  Montgomery's  neighbors  were  unanimous 
as  to  his  usefulness;  but  they  always  agreed  as  to  his  honesty. 
A  leader  of  "  jay  hawkers,"  he  had  but  little  respect  for  man- 
made  laws;  he  met  violence  with  violence,  and  often  could  not 
control  the  excesses  of  his  men. 

The  original  incentive  for  Montgomery's  taking  to  the 
brush  was  the  pro-slavery  outrages  of  1856  in  Linn  County; 
thereafter  his  own  actions  led  to  frequent  efforts  to  retaliate 
by  the  pro-slavery  men,  who  feared  and  hated  him  more  than 
any  one  else.  "His  operations,"  says  Andreas,8  "may  be 
classed  as  defensive,  preventive  and  retaliatory,  and  it  is 
doubtless  true  that  he  did  many  things  which,  when  judged 
outside  of  their  immediate  and  remote  causes  and  connections, 
would  not  stand  the  test  of  the  moral  code."  Yet  after  it 
was  all  over,  and  the  Civil  War  at  hand,  he  was  made  Colo 
nel  of  the  Third  Kansas  Volunteer  Infantry,  later  Colonel  of 
the  Second  South  Carolina  (Negro)  Regiment,  with  which  he 
fought  in  Florida;  and  during  the  Price  raid  into  Missouri,  he 
was  Colonel  of  the  Sixth  Kansas  Militia  Regiment.  Both  in 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  351 

Kansas  and  in  the  South,  as  a  regimental  commander,  he 
aroused  criticism  by  his  ruthless  destruction  and  plundering 
of  captured  towns  and  villages,  partly  in  obedience  to  orders.9 
In  Kansas,  in  1858,  one  of  the  deeds  which  made  him  conspicu 
ous  was  an  attack  on  part  of  Captain  G.  T.  Anderson's  com 
pany  of  the  First  United  States  Cavalry,  April  21,  when  he 
and  seven  other  men  were  overtaken  by  it.  Taking  to  the 
timber,  Montgomery  opened  fire,  killing  one  soldier  and 
injuring  Captain  Anderson  and  two  soldiers,  whereupon  the 
company  fled,  to  their  and  their  commander's  disgrace,  Cap 
tain  Anderson  being  forced  to  resign  from  the  service  in  con 
sequence.10  Another  exploit  was  Montgomery's  destruction 
of  the  ballot-boxes,  in  imitation  of  similar  Missouri  outrages, 
at  the  election  for  Governor  under  the  Lecompton  Constitu 
tion,  January  4,  1858,  because  he  did  not  sympathize  with  the 
decision  of  a  part  of  the  Free  State  party  to  vote  under  the 
Constitution.11  That  his  neighbors  might  not  vote,  he  broke 
the  ballot-box  and  scattered  the  ballots,  for  which  he  was 
indicted  but  never  tried.  Many  other  acts  of  violence  were 
rightly  or  wrongly  laid  at  his  door,  chief  among  the  former 
being  the  attempt  to  burn  Fort  Scott,  early  in  June,  1858. 
Governor  Denver  officially  charged  him  with  this,  and  with 
firing  indiscriminately  into  the  houses  of  the  town,  and  ex 
pressed  his  astonishment  at  meeting  men  fully  aware  of  this 
"most  outrageous  attempt  at  arson  and  murder,"  who  yet 
"uphold  and  justify  Montgomery  and  his  band  in  their  con 
duct."  Of  the  ravaged  district  in  which  Montgomery  oper 
ated,  Governor  Denver,  after  his  personal  tour  of  inspection, 
thus  wrote  to  Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  State: 

"From  Fort  Scott  to  the  crossing  of  the  Osage  river,  or  Marais 
des  Cygnes  as  it  is  there  called,  a  distance  of  about  30  miles,  we 
passed  through  a  country  almost  depopulated  by  the  depredations 
of  the  predatory  bands  under  Montgomery,  presenting  a  scene  of 
desolation  such  as  I  never  expected  to  have  witnessed  in  any  coun 
try  inhabited  by  American  citizens.  .  .  .  The  accounts  given  of  the 
flight  of  the  people  were  heart-rending  in  the  extreme." 

Governor  Denver,  throughout  his  official  correspondence, 
was  extremely  hostile  to  Montgomery,  while  not  failing  to  say 
that,  however  great  the  outrages  he  committed,  there  was  no 


352  JOHN  BROWN 

excuse  for  taking  revenge  on  innocent  persons,  as  Hamilton 
had  done  on  the  Marais  des  Cygnes.12 

To  this  guerrilla  Montgomery,  to  the  scene  of  his  opera 
tions  and  the  crimes  of  Hamilton,  Brown's  mind  turned  as 
soon  as  he  arrived  in  Lawrence.  The  numerous  outrages  upon 
individuals  were  a  close  parallel  to  conditions  as  he  found 
them  around  Lawrence  when  he  first  entered  the  Territory  in 
1855.  Montgomery  was  obviously  a  border  chieftain  after  his 
own  heart,  and,  besides,  in  his  district  was  the  only  possible 
opportunity  for  active  service.  "  Fort  Scott,"  wrote  the  Law 
rence  correspondent  of  the  Chicago  Tribune  on  April  4,  1858, 13 
"is  the  only  place  within  the  Territory  where  the  Border 
Ruffians  now  show  their  teeth. "  Their  worst  specimens,  he 
reported,  were  in  refuge  there.  Fugit,  the  murderer  of  Hoppe, 
lived  in  the  neighborhood.  Clarke,  who  killed  Barber  in  1855, 
was  then  Register  of  the  Land  Office  at  Fort  Scott.  Eli  Moore, 
one  of  W.  A.  Phillips's  murderers,  and  one  of  those  who  shot 
R.  P.  Brown  at  Easton,  "has  his  rendezvous  in  the  same 
vicinity."  Brockett  was  clerk  in  the  Land  Office.  Most  of 
such  of  Titus's  ruffians  as  had  not  gone  to  Nicaragua  with 
Walker  were  also  there.  These  became  the  leaders  of  immi 
grants  from  southwestern  Missouri.  The  land  was  rich  and 
desirable.  The  Free  State  men  persisted  in  coming  in,  being 
then  two  to  one,  and  located  chiefly  in  the  northern  half  of 
the  county.  Ever  since  the  preceding  fall,  the  correspondent 
reported,  they  had  been  harassed  and  plundered  by  the  pro- 
slavery  men,  to  worry  them  out,  by  burning  cabins,  stealing 
cattle  and  horses,  and  making  false  arrests, — all  so  that  they 
should  not  dominate  the  region.  It  was  to  end  this  that  Ham 
ilton  and  his  followers  had  been  ordered  by  Montgomery 
to  leave  the  Territory  immediately,  with  the  result  that 
Hamilton  later  conceived  and  carried  out  his  horrible  plan 
of  revenge. 

Redpath  and  Hinton  stated  that  on  Sunday,  June  27,  when 
they  again  met  Brown  in  the  hotel  in  Lawrence,  he  asked 
them  about  the  movements  and  character  of  Montgomery,  as 
well  as  of  the  trend  of  political  developments,14  and  informed 
them  that  he  would  start  south  the  next  day  to  see  his  rela 
tives  and  Montgomery.  To  Mr.  Sanborn,  Brown  sent,  on 
Monday,  the  28th,  the  following  unsigned  letter:  15 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  353 

LAWRENCE,  KANSAS  TER.  28th  june  1858. 

F.  B.  SANBORN  ESQ;  and  Dear  Friends  at  Boston,  Worcester  and 
Peterboro. 

I  reached  Kansas  with  friends  on  the  26th  inst;  came  here  last 
night,  and  leave  here  today;  for  the  neighborhood  of  late  troubles.  It 
seem  the  troubles  are  not  over  yet.  Can  write  you  but  few  words 
now.  Hope  to  write  you  more  fully  after  a  while.  I  do  hope  you 
will  be  in  earnest  now  to  carry  out  as  soon  as  possible  the  measure 
proposed  in  Mr.  Sanborn's  letter  inviting  me  to  Boston  this  last 
Spring.  I  hope  there  will  be  no  delay  of  that  matter.  Can  you  send 
me  by  Express;  Care  E.  B.  Whitman  Esqr  half  a  Doz;  or  a  full  Doz, 
whistles  such  as  I  described?  at  once? 

Write  me  till  further  advised,  under  sealed  envelope  directing 
stamped  ones  to  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair,  Osawatomie  Kansas  Ter. 

Yours  in  Truth 

On  July  9,  John  Brown,  or  Shubel  Morgan,  as  he  now 
called  himself,  wrote  to  his  son  l6  from  the  "log-cabin  of  the 
notorious  Captain  James  Montgomery,  whom  I  deem  a  very 
brave  and  talented  officer,  and,  what  is  infinitely  more,  a  very 
intelligent,  kind  gentlemanly  and  most  excellent  man  and 
lover  of  freedom."  While  Brown  visited  Montgomery  on 
other  occasions,  he  was  oftenest  at  the  house  of  Augustus 
Wattles,  near  Moneka,  to  which  locality  the  latter  had  re 
moved  with  his  family  from  the  neighborhood  of  Lawrence. 
But  the  headquarters  of  Shubel  Morgan's  company  were  on 
the  claim  of  Eli  Snyder,  the  brave  blacksmith,  and  not  many 
hundred  yards  from  the  very  scene  of  the  Hamilton  Massacre. 
Half  a  mile  from  the  Missouri  line,  this  hill,  now  densely 
wooded,  offered  in  1858  a  beautiful  view  of  the  surrounding 
country.  Brown  arrived  there  about  the  1st  of  July,  with  Eli 
Snyder,  coming  directly  from  the  home  of  Augustus  Wattles. 
Elias,  the  boy,  drove  back  with  Brown  to  Wattles's  for  his 
belongings,17 — blankets,  provisions,  cooking  utensils,  cloth 
ing  and  a  good  supply  of  arms  and  ammunition.  Kagi  and 
Tidd  were  with  Brown  throughout  his  stay,  Gill  and  Stevens 
arriving  later  in  the  summer,  by  way  of  Iowa.  The  first  camp, 
in  which  they  lived  for  four  weeks,  was  located  between 
Snyder's  house  and  his  blacksmith-shop,  near  a  fine  spring, 
which  still  wells  up  under  the  farmhouse  now  standing  on  the 
site  of  the  camp.  Here,  true  to  his  custom,  John  Brown  drew 
up  "Articles  of  Agreement  for  Shubel  Morgan's  Company.1'  * 

*  See  Appendix. 


'354'  JOHN  BROWN 

On  July  20,  Shubel  Morgan  began  a  long  letter  to  Mr. 
Sanborn  and  the  other  Boston  friends,  which  he  could  not 
finish  until  August  6.  In  it  he  gave  this  description  of  con 
ditions  in  the  vicinity  of  the  claim : 18 

"Deserted  farms:  &  dwellings  lie  in  all  directions  for  some  miles 
along  the  line ;  &  the  remaining  inhabitants  watch  every  appearance 
of  persons  moveing  about  with  anxious  jealousy;  &  vigilance.  Four 
of  the  persons  wounded  or  attacked  on  that  occasion*  are  staying 
WITH  me.  The  Blacksmith  Snyder  who  fought  the  murderers  with 
his  brother;  &  son  are  of  the  number.  Old  Mr.  Hargrove  who  was 
teribly  wounded  at  the  same  time  is  another.  The  blacksmith  re 
turned  here  with  me;  &  intends  to  bring  back  his  family  on  to  his 
claim  within  Two  or  Three  days.  A  constant  fear  of  new  troubles 
seems  to  prevail  on  both  sides  the  line ;  &  on  both  sides  are  companies 
of  armed  men.  Any  little  affair  may  open  the  quarrel  afresh.  Two 
murders;  &  cases  of  robery  are  reported  of  late  I  have  also  a  man 
with  me  who  fled  from  his  family;  &  farm;  in  Missouri  but  a  day 
or  Two  since ;  his  life  being  threatened  on  account  of  being  accused 
of  informing  Kansas  men  of  the  whereabouts  of  one  of  the  mur 
derers  who  was  lately  taken;  &  brought  to  this  side.  I  have  con 
cealed  the  fact  of  my  presence  pretty  much;  lest  it  should  tend  to 
create  excitement ;  but  it  is  getting  leaked  out ;  &  will  soon  be  known 
to  all.  As  I  am  not  here  to  seek  or  to  secure  revenge  ;  I  do  not  mean 
to  be  the  first  to  reopen  the  quarrel.  How  soon  it  may  be  raised 
against  me  I  cannot  say;  nor  am  I  over  anxious.  A  portion  of  my 
men  are  in  other  neighborhoods  We  shall  soon  be  in  great  want  of  a 
small  amount  in  a  Draft  or  Drafts  on  New  York,  to  feed  us.  We 
cannot  work  for  wages;  &  provisions  are  not  easily  obtained  on  the 
frontier.  .  .  .  I  may  continue  here  for  some  time." 

A  significant  passage  of  this  letter  is  the  following  comment 
on  a  man  who  ever  since,  unless  we  except  Charles  Robinson, 
has  been  Brown's  bitterest  critic, — and  still  is: "  I  believe  all 
honest^  sensible  Free  State  men  in  Kansas  consider  George 
Washington  Brown's  *  Herald  of  Freedom1  one  of  the  most  mis 
chievous,  traitorous  publications  in  the  whole  country."  On 
August  6  he  added  that  he  had  been  down  with  the  ague  since 
July  23,  and  had  no  safe  way  of  getting  his  letter  off.  Under 
date  of  Moneka,  August  9,  1858,  Brown  wrote  to  his  son, 
John  Brown,  Jr.,  this  valuable  review  of  the  situation,  here 
printed  for  the  first  time : 19 

"Your  letter  with  enclosures,  exactly  those  I  wanted,  of  the  23rd 
of  July  is  received.    I  have  been  spending  some  weeks  on  the  Mis- 
*  The  Hamilton  Massacre. 


SHUBEL   MORGAN  355 

souri  line  on  the  same  quarter  section  where  the  horrible  murders 
of  May  iQth  were  committed.  Confidence  seems  to  be  greatly  re 
stored  amongst  the  Free  State  men  in  consequence,  several  of  whom 
returned  to  their  deserted  claims.  The  Election  of  the  2nd  Inst. 
passed  off  quietly  on  this  part  of  the  Line.  Its  general  result  in  the 
Territory  you  are  probably  advised  of.  Our  going  onto  the  line 
was  done  with  the  utmost  quiet  &  so  far  as  I  am  concerned  under  an 
assumed  name  to  avoid  creating  any  excitement.  But  the  matter 
was  in  some  measure  leaked  out  and  over  into  Missouri.  Some 
believed  the  report  of  O.  B.'s  [Old  Brown's]  being  directly  on  the 
Line  and  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  West  Point,  but  the  greater 
part  on  the  Kansas  side  did  not  believe  it.  In  Missouri  the  fact 
was  pretty  generally  understood,  &  the  idea  of  having  such  a  neigh 
bour  improving  a  Claim  (as  was  the  case)  right  on  a  conspicuous 
place  and  in  full  view  for  miles,  around  in  Missouri,  produced  a 
ferment  there  which  you  can  better  imagine  than  I  can  describe. 
Which  of  the  passions  most  predominated,  fear  or  rage,  I  do  not 
pretend  to  say.  We  had  a  number  of  visitors  from  there,  some  of 
whom  we  believed  at  the  time  and  still  believe  were  spies.  One 
avowed  himself  a  pro-slavery  man  after  I  had  told  him  my  suspi 
cions  of  himself  &  of  those  who  came  before  him,  but  at  the  same  time 
assured  him  that  notwithstanding  he  was  in  a  perfect  nest  of  the 
most  ultra  Abolitionists,  not  a  hair  of  his  head  should  fall  so  long  as 
we  knew  of  no  active  mischief  he  had  been  engaged  in.  When  I  told 
him  my  suspicions  of  him  he  seemed  to  be  much  agitated,  though 
to  all  appearance  a  man  of  great  self-possession  and  courage  —  I 
recited  to  him  briefly  the  story  of  the  Missouri  invasions,  threaten- 
ings,  bullyings,  boastings,  driving  off,  beating,  robbing,  burning  out 
and  murdering  of  Kansas  people,  telling  him  pro-slavery  men  of  Mis 
souri  had  begun  and  carried  steadily  forward  in  this  manner  with 
most  miserably  rotten  and  corrupt  pro-slavery  Administrations  to 
back  them  up,  shield  and  assist  them  while  carrying  on  their  Dev 
ilish  work.  I  told  him  Missouri  people  along  the  Line  might  have 
perfect  quiet  if  they  honestly  desired  it,  and  further,  that  if  they 
chose  War  they  would  soon  have  all  they  might  any  of  them  care 
for.  I  gave  him  the  most  powerful  Abolition  lecture  of  which  I  am 
capable,  having  an  unusual  gift  of  utterance  for  me;  gave  him  some 
dinner  and  told  him  to  go  back  and  make  a  full  report  and  then 
sent  him  off.  Got  no  such  visits  afterwards.  I  presume  he  will  not 
soon  forget  the  old  Abolitionist  'mit  de'  white  beard  on.  I  gave 
him  also  a  full  description  of  my  views  of  a  Full  Blooded  Abolition 
ist  and  told  him  who  were  the  real  nigger -stealers  &c.  ..." 

The  postscript  to  this  letter,  longer  than  the  missive  itself, 
begins  thus: 

"P.  S.   Our  family  interest  in  Kansas  affairs  is  so  often  misstated 
by  those  who  do  not  know  and  oftener  do  not  care  to  tell  the  truth 


356  JOHN  BROWN 

that  Mr.  Wattles  had  determined  for  some  time  past  to  bring  out 
our  history  from  time  [to  time]  in  a  kind  of  series  as  he  could  collect 
facts,  and  instantly  called  on  me  for  them.  I  have  consented  to 
supply  them,  &  have  commenced." 

He  then  directs  his  son  to  collect  material  for  that  sketch 
of  his  career:  "A  brief  history  of  John  Brown,  otherwise 
(old  B)  and  his  family:  as  connected  With  Kansas ;  By  one 
who  knows,"  to  which  reference  was  made  in  an  earlier  chap 
ter.*  Brown  began  this  never  finished  autobiographical  sketch 
at  Wattles's  house,20  from  which  he  wrote  as  above. 

As  soon  as  he  reached  the  Snyder  claim,  Brown  began  to 
build  a  small  fortification  of  stone  and  wood  for  defence 
against  the  Missourians,21  which  speedily  became  magnified 
by  popular  report  into  a  "Fort  Snyder."  There  is  no  doubt, 
too,  that  he  commenced  negotiations  for  the  purchase  of  the 
claim,  and  this  has  given  rise  to  a  long  controversy  in  Kansas 
as  to  whether  he  was  or  was  not  the  owner  or  an  owner  of  this 
land  at  one  time.  The  facts  seem  to  be  that  Snyder  never  per 
fected  his  claim  to  the  land;  that  when  Brown  arrived  there, 
he  did  begin  negotiations  with  Snyder,  which  must  have  been 
not  for  the  land,  but  for  the  squatter's  claim  to  it;  that  sub 
sequently  Snyder  changed  his  mind  and  Brown's  effort  to  pur 
chase  came  to  an  end,  giving  rise  to  charges  of  bad  faith 
against  Snyder.  When  the  land  was  disposed  of  by  the  gov 
ernment,  the  name  of  neither  Brown  nor  Snyder  figured  in  the 
transaction,  the  government  selling  180.84  acres  for  $225.80  to 
C.  C.  Scadsall  (generally  called  Hadsall).22  Snyder  appears 
to  have  offered  the  place  to  Hadsall,  after  accepting  money 
from  Brown  in  part  payment.  Hadsall,  it  is  reported,  declared 
that  when  he  told  Brown  of  Snyder's  offer, 

"Brown  showed  the  only  anger  that  Hadsall  had  ever  witnessed, 
but  walked  away  without  saying  much.  Shortly  after  he  told  Had 
sall  that  he  was  content  for  him  to  have  the  place,  but  he,  Brown, 
wanted  to  reserve  all  privileges  of  military  occupation  at  his  plea 
sure.  It  seemed  that  Brown  had  not  made  all  his  payments  to  Sny 
der,  who  in  a  way  not  unusual  to  him  was  trying  to  get  some  money 
from  Hadsall.  That  day  Brown  wrote  out  and  signed  a  bill  of  sale 
to  Hadsall  and  signed  it  in  his  own  name,  and  Snyder,  after  turning 
over  to  Hadsall  his  three  yoke  of  oxen,  cows,  wagons,  and  plows, 

*  See  ante,  page  86. 


SHUBEL   MORGAN  357 

received  six  hundred  dollars  from  Hadsall  and  added  his  quit-claim 
to  the  bill  of  sale.  Hadsall  lost  this  precious  bit  of  paper  during  the 
war."  23 

John  Brown  made,  early  in  August,  an  attempt  to  get  the 
revolvers  sent  to  him  in  1856  by  the  National  Kansas  Com 
mittee,  which  had  been  in  Lawrence  ever  since  that  time;  for 
them,  as  he  had  told  Horace  White,  he  himself  was  not  willing 
to  ask,  when  in  Lawrence.  On  August  3  he  wrote  from  Mo- 
neka  to  William  Hutchinson,  asking  for  the  names  of  those  to 
whom  the  revolvers  had  been  loaned  subject  to  his  recalling 
them.  This  information  Mr.  Hutchinson  cheerfully  gave, 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  Brown  ever  obtained  any  of  these 
weapons.24  For  an  interesting  incident  of  the  stay  with 
Snyder,  we  have  the  doughty  blacksmith's  own  narrative: 25 

"During  the  time  that  Brown  was  at  my  place  (1858),  he  wished 
me  to  take  a  short  trip  into  Missouri  and  I  agreeing,  Brown  took  an 
old  surveyor's  compass  and  chain  and  he  and  I  followed  down  along 
the  river,  while  Kagi  and  Tidd  took  the  road  to  Butler.  They  pre 
tended  to  be  looking  for  situations  to  teach  a  school.  We  were  all  to 
meet  at  Pattenville,  but  not  to  appear  to  know  each  other.  Brown 
and  I  were  ostensibly  surveying.  On  meeting  at  Pattenville  we  had 
an  opportunity  to  come  to  an  understanding  to  meet  again  at  a 
clump  of  trees  on  a  certain  hill.  Brown  and  I  took  the  river  and 
when  we  met  again  Martin  White's  house  was  half  a  mile  east  of  us. 
Brown  had  a  small  field  glass  which  I  asked  him  to  loan  me,  as  I  had 
seen  some  one  near  the  house  that  I  took  to  be  Martin  White,  whom 
I  knew;  having  heard  him  address  a  meeting  at  West  Point  a  few 
days  after  the  burning  of  Osawatomie,  when  Clarke  was  raising  a 
force  to  drive  and  burn  out  Free  State  men  between  there  and  Fort 
Scott.  At  that  time  White  had  just  returned  from  accompanying 
Reid  and  I  heard  him  describe  how  he  killed  Frederick  Brown,  — 
making  the  motion  of  lowering  a  gun.  Brown  adjusted  the  glass  and 
looking  I  could  recognize  Martin  White  reading  a  book  as  he  sat  in 
a  chair  in  the  shade  of  a  tree.  I  handed  the  glass  to  Brown  and 
asked  him  to  look  and  he  said  he  also  recognized  him  saying :  —  'I 
declare  that  is  Martin  White.'  For  a  few  minutes  nothing  was  said 
when  I  remarked  '  Suppose  you  and  I  go  down  and  see  the  old  man 
and  have  a  talk  with  him.'  'No,  no,  I  can't  do  that,'  said  Brown. 
Kagi  said,  'let  Snyder  and  me  go.'  Capt.  Brown  said:  'Go  if  you 
wish  to  but  don't  you  hurt  a  hair  of  his  head;  but  if  he  has  any 
slaves  take  the  last  one  of  them.'  Kagi  said:  'Snyder  and  I  want 
to  go  without  instructions,  or  not  at  all.'  Therefore  as  Brown  was 
unwilling  that  Martin  White,  who  had  murdered  his  son,  should 
receive  any  harm  we  did  not  go  near  him.  It  was  thus  shown  that 
John  Brown  had  no  revenge  to  gratify." 


358  JOHN  BROWN 

There  is  other  evidence  to  this  effect;  Brown  never  per 
mitted  any  attack  to  be  made  on  White,  tried  to  head  off  his 
sons  when  they  were  on  White's  trail,  and  repeatedly  stated 
that  he  did  not  wish  for  White's  death,  —  an  attitude  which 
cannot  be  too  highly  commended.  To  James  Hanway  he  once 
said:26 

"People  mistake  my  objects.  I  would  not  hurt  one  hair  of  his 
[White's]  head.  I  would  not  go  one  inch  to  take  his  life;  I  do  not 
harbour  the  feelings  of  revenge.  /  act  from  a  principle.  My  aim  and 
object  is  to  restore  human  rights." 

Brown's  obstinate  ague  or  malarial  fever,  to  which  he 
referred  in  his  letter  of  August  9  to  his  family,  did  not  yield 
because  of  his  sojourn  with  Augustus  Wattles.  About  the 
middle  of  August,  he  was  taken  by  William  Partridge  to  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Adair's  hospitable  cabin  at  Osawatomie,27  and  there, 
in  a  corner  of  the  living-room,  he  lay  for  fully  four  weeks, 
nursed  with  the  greatest  fidelity  by  the  devoted  Kagi  and 
the  Adair  family.  On  September  9  he  wrote  to  John  Brown, 
Jr.,28  that  since  August  9,  the  date  of  his  last  letter,  he  had 
been  "entirely  laid  up  with  Ague  and  Chill  fever.  Was  never 
more  sick."  As  the  Adairs  look  back  upon  it,  the  disease 
appears  to  them  now  to  have  been  a  malarial  or  typhoid 
fever;  they  were  often  asked  by  visitors  who  the  sick  man  in 
the  sitting-room  was,  but  they  knew  always  how  to  describe 
him  by  other  than  his  right  name.29  Dr.  Gilpatrick,  of  Osawa 
tomie,  was  called  in  to  aid  the  patient.  Finally,  on  September 
23,  Kagi  was  able  to  report  to  his  sister  his  arrival  in  Law 
rence,  after  being 

"compelled  to  lay  off  at  Osawatomie  for  a  month,  during  which 
time  by  my  taking  care  of  him,  [Brown],  I  was  down  but  only  for  a 
week.  .  .  .  B.  has  not  quite  recovered.  .  .  .  Things  are  now  quiet. 
I  am  collecting  arms,  etc.  belonging  to  J.  B.  so  that  he  may  command 
them  at  any  time." 

On  September  13,  Brown  notified  his  wife  that  he  was  still 
very  weak  and  wrote  only  with  great  labor;  even  on  the 
nth  of  October,  he  had  to  tell  her  that  he  had  been  "very 
feeble,"  but  had  improved  a  great  deal  during  the  last  week. 
"  I  can  now  see,"  he  added,  "no  good  reason  why  I  should  not 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  359 

be  located  nearer  home  as  soon  as  I  can  collect  the  means  for 
defraying  expenses."  31 

John  Brown  probably  reached  Lawrence  with  Kagi  late  in 
September,  and  was  there  again  on  October  14,  15  and  16. 
Martin  F.  Conway  testified  before  the  Mason  Committee  3* 
that  he  saw  Brown  there  twice  in  the  summer  and  fall,  and 
discussed  with  him  his  relations  to  the  National  Kansas  Com 
mittee,  after  Brown's  illness  in  southern  Kansas,  but  he  errone 
ously  places  the  date  of  the  first  visit  as  late  in  July  or  early  in 
August,  when  Brown  was  on  Snyder's  claim.  A  receipt  given 
by  Mr.  Conway  to  John  Brown  for  documents  put  in  his  pos 
session  is  still  in  existence,  and  fixes  the  date  for  the  second 
interview  as  October  15,  1858. 33  As  to  the  first  interview, 
Conway  testified  that  it  took  place  at  Mrs.  Killan's  hotel,  and 
that  Brown  declared  that  he  was  greatly  in  need  and  had 
received  an  order  from  the  National  Kansas  Executive  Com 
mittee  for  a  large  sum  of  money  which  he  had  never  been  able 
to  obtain.  By  "order"  Brown  meant,  if  he  used  that  word, 
the  resolution  of  the  National  Kansas  Committee  of  January 
24, 1857,  giving  him  the  five  thousand  dollars,  of  which  he  had 
received  only  so  small  a  part,  and  also  "such  arms  and  sup 
plies  as  the  Committee  may  have"  up  to  an  amount  sufficient 
to  provide  for  one  hundred  men,  besides  a  "letter  of  appro 
bation."  In  the  summer  of  1858,  John  Brown  received  from 
George  L.  Stearns  a  package  of  promissory  notes  which  had 
been  given  by  Kansas  farmers  to  the  National  Kansas  Com 
mittee  in  exchange  for  food-supplies  or  aid  of  one  kind  or 
another.  Mr.  Stearns,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Brown  rifles 
and  revolvers,  had  advanced  large  sums  for  this  purpose  to 
the  Massachusetts  State  Committee,  and  was  given  these 
notes  as  security  for  his  advances.34  Some  of  these  he  now 
sent  to  Brown,  who  proceeded  to  collect  on  them  for  his  imme 
diate  needs.  He  told  Mr.  Conway  that, 

"the  National  Kansas  Committee  had  passed  a  resolution  some 
time  before  upon  which  he  based  a  right  to  act  himself  as  agent  for 
that  Committee  in  the  Territory  in  the  collection  of  debts  due  it, 
and  as  Mr.  Whitman  did  not  seem  to  satisfy  him  in  that  business 
he  had  taken  it  upon  himself  to  make  collections.  .  .  .  He  claimed 
to  have  received  a  commission,  and,  as  a  result  of  his  labors  he 
produced  a  package  of  papers,  which  he  said  were  promissory  notes 


360  JOHN  BROWN 

from  parties  in  the  Territory,  who  had  received  provisions  and  cloth 
ing  from  this  Committee  during  the  troubles  in  1856.  They  had  en 
gaged  to  pay  for  them  and  they  had  given  these  notes,  and  he  had 
got  them,  and  he  came  to  me  to  ask  a  favor  that  I  would  take  these 
documents  and  put  them  in  my  safe  and  keep  them  subject  to  his 
order."35 

To  this  Mr.  Conway  added  that  he  had  signed  the  receipt 
written  for  him  by  Kagi,  which  fixes  the  date  of  this  trans 
action.  Apparently,  Brown  collected  on  these  notes  several 
hundred  dollars.  He  also  receipted  on  October  16,  at  Law 
rence,  for  goods  received  from  the  National  Kansas  Commit 
tee,  signing  as  its  agent.36 

In  the  use  of  this  signature  John  Brown  undoubtedly  went 
too  far,  and  his  authority  to  do  so  was  sharply  denied  by 
H.  B.  Hurd,  the  Secretary  of  the  National  Kansas  Committee, 
on  October  26,  1858,  when  Mr.  Hurd  wrote  to  Colonel  E.  B. 
Whitman : 

"Capt.  John  Brown  has  no  authority  to  take,  receive,  collect  or 
transfer  any  notes  or  accounts  belonging  to  the  National  Kansas 
Committee  nor  has  he  ever  had.  Nor  will  any  such  dealing  be  recog 
nized  or  sanctioned  by  our  Committee.  We  wish  you  to  hold  all  per 
sons  responsible  who  undertake  to  retain  or  deal  with  such  notes 
and  accounts.  You  will  recollect  that  you  were  given  full  authority 
to  act  in  reference  to  said  notes  &  accounts  including  authority  to 
transfer  the  same  by  assignment.  This  authority  has  never  been 
revoked  or  given  to  any  other  person.  All  the  papers  that  Mr.  Brown 
has  from  us  are  a  copy  of  the  Resolutions  passed  in  the  New  York 
Meeting  certified  by  me,  and  an  order  for  some  small  arms  &  tents 
that  were  at  Lawrence  I  think  about  the  time  B.  returned  to  Kansas 
after  you  met  him  at  our  office  in  Chicago.  He  has  never  been  to 
our  office  since  that  time  nor  have  we  had  any  communication  with 
him  since  then.  I  have  seen  him  once  since  then  but  only  for  a  few 
minutes  &  then  nothing  was  said  or  done  about  the  matter  above 
referred  to."37 

But  there  are  strong  reasons  why  this  error  of  judgment 
should  not  be  charged  up  against  Brown  as  a  moral  delin 
quency.  The  relations  of  the  National  Committee  and  the 
Massachusetts  Committee  were  inextricably  mixed  in  Kansas, 
where  E.  B.  Whitman  acted  at  this  time  as  agent  for  both 
Committees;  Brown  had  received  the  notes  from  Mr.  Stearns 
with  directions  to  collect  on  them;  Mr.  Whitman  was  not  to 
be  found  when  Brown  tried  to  get  at  him,  and  finally  he 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  361 

doubtless  conscientiously  believed  that  the  resolution  in  his 
favor  of  the  National  Committee  gave  him  sufficient  authority. 
This  latter  point  appears  from  the  following  letter  written 
about  this  time : 38 

MR.  J.  T.  Cox; 

SIR:  —  You  are  hereby  notified  that  I  hold  claims  against  the 
National  Kansas  Committee  which  are  good  against  them  and  all 
persons  whatever ;  and  that  I  have  authority  from  said  committee  to 
take  possession,  as  their  Agent,  of  any  supplies  belonging  to  said 
Committee,  wherever  found. 

You  will  therefore  retain  in  your  hands  any  monies  or  accounts 
you  may  now  have  in  your  custody,  by  direction  of  said  Committee 
or  any  of  its  Agents,  and  hold  them  subject  to  my  call  or  order,  as 
I  shall  hold  you  responsible  for  them,  to  me  as  Agent  of  said  Com 
mittee 

OTTUMWA,  Oct.  7,  1858 

JOHN  BROWN 
Agt.  Nat.  Kan.  Com." 

In  this,  again,  Brown  quite  exceeded  the  actual  wording 
of  the  New  York  resolution,  which  limited  the  supplies  to  the 
needs  of  one  hundred  men,  of  which  he  had  received  a  consid 
erable  portion  in  1857  after  the  vote.  Nevertheless,  as  Mr. 
Sanborn  records,39  "the  Massachusetts  Committee  .  .  .  stood 
firmly  by  Brown"  in  the  "lively  dispute  in  Kansas"  excited 
by  his  action. 

"They  had  collected  much  money,  had  expended  it  judiciously, 
and  had  allowed  a  generous  individual,  their  chairman,  to  place  in 
their  hands  more  money,  for  which  he  was  willing  to  wait  without 
payment  until  the  property  of  the  Committee  could  be  turned  into 
cash;  then,  to  give  him  all  the  security  in  its  power,  the  Committee 
had  made  over  this  property  to  him,  with  no  restriction  as  to  what  he 
should  do  with  it;  and  Mr.  Stearns  had  chosen  to  give  it  to  Brown." 

William  F.  M.  Arny,  another  agent  of  the  National  Kansas 
Committee,  testified  to  seeing  Brown  in  Lawrence  several 
times  during  the  summer  and  fall  of  i858,40  and  Brown  on  one 
of  these  occasions  spent  a  day  or  two  at  his  home,  when  they 
discussed,  in  general  terms,  Brown's  plan  for  attacking  slav 
ery  elsewhere  than  in  Kansas.  It  must  have  been  on  one  of 
these  visits,  too,  that  Colonel  William  A.  Phillips  had  the 
third  of  those  interviews  with  Brown  which  he  described  at 


362  JOHN  BROWN 

length  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  December,  1879,  and  ap 
parently  erroneously  placed  in  the  year  1859.  To  him,  on  this 
occasion,  Brown  set  forth  his  views  on  the  slavery  question  at 
great  length,  first  sketching  the  history  of  American  slavery 
from  its  beginnings.  He  said  to  Phillips: 

"And  now  we  have  reached  a  point  where  nothing  but  war  can 
settle  the  question.  Had  they  [the  slavery  men]  succeeded  in  Kan 
sas,  they  would  have  gained  a  power  that  would  have  given  them 
permanently  the  upper  hand,  and  it  would  have  been  the  death  knell 
of  republicanism  in  America.  They  are  checked,  but  not  beaten. 
They  never  intend  to  relinquish  the  machinery  of  this  government 
into  the  hands  of  the  opponents  of  slavery.  It  has  taken  them  more 
than  half  a  century  to  get  it  and  they  know  its  significance  too  well 
to  give  it  up.  If  the  Republican  party  elect  its  president  next  year, 
there  will  be  war.  The  moment  they  are  unable  to  control,  they  will 
go  out,  and  as  a  rival  nation  along-side  they  will  get  the  countenance 
and  aid  of  the  European  nations,  until  American  republicanism  and 
freedom  are  overthrown." 

To  Phillips,  Brown  spoke  of  the  opportunity  and  achieve 
ments  of  Spartacus,  and  suggested  that  something  similar 
might  happen.  To  this  Phillips  objected  that  the  American 
negroes  were  a  "peaceful,  domestic,  inoffensive  race;  in  all 
their  sufferings  they  seemed  to  be  incapable  of  resentment 
or  reprisal."  Brown's  reply  was  quick  and  sharp:  "You  have 
not  studied  them  right,  and  you  have  not  studied  them  long 
enough.  Human  nature  is  the  same  everywhere." 

In  connection  with  the  National  Kansas  Committee's  notes, 
Brown  visited  other  places  besides  Ottumwa,  where  his  letter 
to  Mr.  Cox  shows  him  to  have  been  on  October  7.  It  is  estab 
lished  that  he  visited  Emporia  on  this  same  business,  and  this 
is  as  far  west  as  he  is  known  to  have  gone  during  his  stay  in 
the  Territory.41  On  October  n  he  was  again  in  Osawatomie, 
as  already  recorded,  and  on  October  15  and  16  in  Lawrence, 
when  he  returned  for  a  day  or  two  to  the  South;  for  Kagi 
records  in  the  Tribune  his  and  Brown's  being  at  Osawato 
mie  on  October  25.  According  to  this  letter,  Brown  went  up 
from  Linn  County  on  Friday,  October  22,  bringing  news  that 
Montgomery  had  forcibly  entered  the  court-house  at  Fort 
Scott  on  the  2 1st  and  taken  possession  of  the  court  and  of  the 
papers  of  the  grand  jury,  compelled  the  former  to  adjourn, 
and  destroyed  the  latter.  "He  is  now  in  the  field-"  wrote 


SHUBEL   MORGAN  363 

Kagi, "  ready  to  meet  the  worst."  Of  Brown,  Kagi  wrote,  "The 
Captain  has  shown  that  he  can  be  in  the  Territory  without 
making  war.  He  will  now,  if  necessary,  take  the  field  in  aid 
of  Montgomery."  42  The  Captain  soon  returned  to  the  dis 
turbed  districts.  There,  on  the  3Oth  of  October,  an  attempt 
was  made  to  assassinate  Montgomery,  his  wife  and  children, 
by  pro-slavery  men,  who  attacked  his  cabin  at  night  and  fired 
a  volley  into  it.43  Brown  himself  was  at  Augustus  Wattles's, 
that  night.  The  occurrence  led  his  men  to  fortify  strongly 
the  cabin  of  Montgomery's  mother-in-law,  near  Montgomery's 
own.  Gill,  Tidd  and  Stevens  did  most  of  the  work,  for  Brown 
was  not  yet  himself;  he  aided  by  indulging  in  his  favorite  oc 
cupation  of  cooking.44  On  November  I,  while  at  Mr.  Wat 
tles's,  he  wrote  two  letters  to  members  of  his  family,  describing 
himself  as  much  better  in  health,  "but  not  very  strong  yet." 
In  both  of  them  he  stated,  doubtless  with  the  Montgomery 
incident  in  mind,  that  "things  at  this  moment  look  quite 
threatening  along  the  line."  45 

The  Wattles  family  preserves  some  interesting  recollections 
of  these  ever- welcome  visits  of  Brown.46  There  was  nothing 
of  the  swashbuckler  about  him ;  as  quiet  in  his  manner  as  any 
Quaker,  he  was  ready  to  do  his  share  of  the  household  drudg 
ery  as  soon  as  he  arrived.  Reading  to  the  Wattles  family 
a  newspaper  article  which  excused  his  bitterness  against 
slavery  on  the  ground  of  his  personal  injuries,  he  commented 
indignantly:  "It  seems  strange  in  a  Christian  country  that 
a  man  should  be  called  a  monomaniac  for  following  the  plain 
dictates  of  our  Saviour."  To  Mrs.  Wattles  he  then  said:  "I 
can  put  up  with  the  abuse  of  my  enemies,  but  the  excuses  of 
my  friends  are  more  than  I  like  to  bear." 

November  was,  in  the  main,  a  quiet  month  for  Brown  and 
his  men.  Besides  building  the  Montgomery  fort,  theirs  was 
the  frontiersman's  life.  "Sometimes,"  records  Mr.  Gill,47  of 
his  own  and  Kagi's  activities,  "one  had  the  ague,  sometimes 
both.  Sometimes  we  fished,  sometimes  we  had  our  supper  and 
beds ;  at  other  times  we  went  supperless  and  took  the  prairie 
for  our  bed  with  the  blue  arch  for  our  covering."  One  or  the 
other  of  these  men  was  generally  Brown's  companion  at  this 
time.  He  was  not  drawn  to  Tidd,  and  Stevens  worried  him 
because  the  ex-soldier  would  not  take  Brown's  orders  except 


364  JOHN  BROWN 

in  situations  in  which  it  was  a  captain's  right  to  command. 
It  was  not  in  Stevens's  nature  to  be  uniformly  submissive. 
Once,  it  is  related  by  Mr.  Gill,  Stevens  said  to  Brown:  "If 
God  controls  all  things,  and  dislikes  the  institution  of  slav 
ery,  why  does  He  allow  it  to  exist?"  "Well,"  replied  Brown, 
floored  for  once,  "that  is  one  question  I  cannot  answer." 

On  the  1 3th  of  November  there  was  a  touch  of  active  ser 
vice  for  Shubel  Morgan,  —  the  only  incident  in  this  month 
which  bore  out  Kagi's  statement  of  his  readiness  to  take  the 
field  to  aid  Montgomery.  The  latter,  learning  that  he  had 
been  indicted  at  Paris,  Kansas,  by  a  pro-slavery  jury,  for  his 
destruction  of  the  ballot-box  in  the  January  previous,  marched 
with  Brown  and  his  followers  upon  the  town,  in  search  of  the 
indictments  and  warrants,  Brown  remaining  upon  the  out 
skirts  while  Montgomery  searched  unsuccessfully.48  This  raid 
did  not  improve  their  standing  with  the  Territorial  authori 
ties.  The  bias  of  the  acting  Governor,  Hugh  S.  Walsh  (who 
filled  the  Governor's  chair  in  the  interim  between  Governor 
Denver's  resignation  and  the  arrival  of  his  successor,  Samuel 
Medary,  the  last  Territorial  Governor),  against  the  Free  State 
men  was  perfectly  apparent.  He  wrote  on  November  19  to 
Secretary  Cass,49  urging  that  "a  reward  of  $300  for  Mont 
gomery  and  $500  for  old  John  Brown,  and  their  delivery  at 
the  fort,  would  secure  their  persons  and  break  up  their  organ 
ization  or  drive  them  from  the  Territory."  A  Captain  A.  J. 
Weaver,  who  saw  everything  through  pro-slavery  eyes,  was 
the  chief  medium  of  Walsh's  and  Medary's  information,  until 
he  accidentally  killed  himself  while  bringing  into  the  State 
some  Federal  arms  loaned  to  Kansas  for  a  militia  company 
he  had  been  authorized  to  raise.50  On  November  30,  Captain 
Weaver  and  the  sheriff,  McDaniel,  plotted  to  capture  Brown 
and  Montgomery ;  for  Weaver  was  sure,  as  he  wrote  to  the  act 
ing  Governor,  they  were  preparing  "for  some  infernal  diaboli 
cal  act."  51  Brown,  not  knowing  of  this  impending  visitation, 
left  with  Gill  for  Osawatomie  on  the  morning  of  Wednesday, 
December  I.  What  happened  in  his  absence  was  thus  de 
scribed  by  Kagi  in  the  columns  of  the  Lawrence  Republican : 62 

"When  the  intended  attack  became  known,  the  people  came  in 
from  all  quarters,  for  the  defence  of  the  little  garrison.  They  came 
unobserved,  that  the  great  posse  might  not  become  frightened,  and 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  365 

run  before  an  opportunity  was  given  to  whip  them  handsomely. 
Montgomery  heard  the  news  while  on  the  Little  Osage,  and  returned 
with  a  small  force  on  Thursday  morning  [December  2].  A  portion  of 
the  Free  State  men  were  placed  in  'the  fort;'  Montgomery  with  the 
remainder  placed  himself  in  a  good  position  nearby." 

When  the  posse  took  up  their  march  and  had  approached 
within  a  few  rods  of  the  fort,  Whipple  notified  them  that  the 
Free  State  men  were  prepared  to  "resist  the  whole  universe, 
with  the  devil  thrown  in."  The  next  day,  the  posse  having 
disintegrated,  the  sheriff  had  but  a  handful  of  men  left.  These 
commenced  stopping  and  harassing  single  Free  State  men  on 
the  highways.  Immediately  on  hearing  of  this,  Montgomery's 
men  moved.  Their  first  act  was  to  send  four  men  to  capture 
the  sheriff  and  one  R.  B.  Mitchell,  as  a  checkmate.  The  latter 
was  deprived  of  his  rifle  and  brace  of  revolvers.  "After  a 
wholesome  lecture  they  were  released."  The  sheriff's  pathetic 
account  of  this  humiliating  experience,  properly  garbled,  is 
still  preserved.53  It  fully  bears  out  a  statement  of  Captain 
Weaver's  that  "many  of  the  people  of  the  county  are  intimi 
dated  and  afraid  —  some  of  old  Brown  and  others  of  Mont 
gomery."  54  Thus  ended  ingloriously  one  of  a  number  of  at 
tempts  to  capture  Shubel  Morgan. 

That  energetic  citizen  wrote  to  his  family  on  December  2, 
from  Osawatomie:  55  "  I  have  just  this  moment  returned  from 
the  South  where  the  prospect  of  quiet  was  probably  never  so 
poor,"  little  dreaming  that  his  own  camp  was  at  that  moment 
being  menaced.  ' '  Other  parts  of  the  Territory  are  undisturbed 
and  may  very  likely  remain  so ;  unless  drawn  into  the  quarrel 
of  the  border  counties.  I  expect  to  go  South  again  immedi 
ately.  .  .  ."  His  health  was  improving,  but  "I  still  get  a 
shake  pretty  often."  As  to  his  plans,  he  said:  "When  I  wrote 
you  last  I  thought  the  prospect  was  that  I  should  soon  shift 
my  quarters  somewhat.  I  still  have  the  same  prospect,  but 
am  wholly  at  a  loss  as  to  the  exact  time."  As  soon  as  he 
returned  South,  he  took  the  unexpected  step  of  drafting  a 
peace  agreement.  This  was  presented  to  a  joint  meeting  of 
pro-slavery  and  Free  Soil  men,  which  had  been  called  for 
December  6  at  Sugar  Mound,  as  a  direct  result  of  the  humilia 
tion  put  upon  the  sheriff  after  the  failure  of  his  attack  upon 
Brown.66  Montgomery  himself  was  present  at  the  meeting, 


366  JOHN  BROWN 

and  presented  Brown's  draft  of  the  treaty.  Shubel  Morgan 
had  urged  that  this  should  be  signed  by  a  number  of  the 
prominent  men  of  both  parties,  but  Montgomery  found  it 
unwise  to  insist  upon  this.  With  slight  verbal  alterations,  the 
draft  was  adopted.  It  was  in  effect  a  renewal  of  the  Denver 
agreement.*  This  had  been  adhered  to  until  the  action  of  the 
Paris  court,  together  with  the  attempt  to  assassinate  him  and 
the  visit  of  the  sheriff  to  Brown's  camp,  had  convinced  Mont 
gomery  that  it  was  abrogated.57  Not  that  his  men  were  alto 
gether  blameless  during  this  period;  sporadic  "jay hawking" 
doubtless  went  on,  despite  Montgomery's  efforts  to  control. 
But  the  new  Sugar  Mound  convention  was  hardly  agreed  to 
before  it  was  violated.  On  Thursday,  December  16,  Mont 
gomery  again  attacked  Fort  Scott,58  in  order  to  release  Ben 
jamin  Rice,  a  Free  State  settler,  who  had  been  arrested  on 
November  16,  in  violation,  Montgomery  claimed,  of  the  Den 
ver  treaty  of  June  15.  When  Rice  was  not  promptly  released 
after  the  Sugar  Mound  treaty,  Montgomery  organized,  on 
December  14,  a  force  of  nearly  one  hundred  men  and  invited 
John  Brown  to  join  it.  This  he  did,  together  with  Kagi  and 
Stevens.  The  night  before  the  attack,  there  was  a  conclave 
near  Fort  Scott  as  to  the  command.  After  much  discussion 
it  was  decided  that  Montgomery  should  lead,59  whereupon 
Brown,  with  his  customary  dislike  of  serving  under  another, 
took  but  a  small  part  in  the  subsequent  proceedings,  going 
only  to  the  rendezvous. 

It  was  well  that  he  did  not  lead.  While  Rice  was  being  freed 
from  his  chains  in  the  Free  State  Hotel,  J.  H.  Little,  the  owner 
of  a  store  across  the  way,  fired  a  load  of  buckshot  at  Kagi, 
whose  heavy  overcoat  alone  saved  him  from  severe  injury. 
In  the  melee  which  followed,  Little  was  killed  and  his  store 
plundered,  some  seven  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  goods  being 
stolen.  Charles  Jennison,  subsequently  Colonel  of  the  Seventh 
Kansas  Cavalry,  is  credited  with  being  specially  active  among 
the  plunderers,  and  in  some  accounts  Little's  death  is  laid 
to  Stevens,  but  unjustly.  The  whole  affair  reflects  credit  upon 
no  one;  it  at  once  gave  the  pro-slavery  men  the  incentive  to 
reprisal,  and  enabled  them  to  obtain  from  Governor  Medary 
the  authority  to  organize  militia  for  the  defence  of  their 

*  See  Appendix. 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  367 

town,60  besides  prejudicing  the  new  Governor  more  than  ever 
against  the  Free  State  leaders.  Brown  was  subsequently 
wrongly  charged  by  Governor  Robinson  and  others  with  the 
leadership  and  instigation  of  the  Fort  Scott  outrage,  both  of 
which  questionable  honors  belong  clearly  to  Montgomery. 
It  must  be  stated,  in  the  interest  of  historical  accuracy,  that 
Montgomery  subsequently  averred  on  a  number  of  occasions 
that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to  assume  the  leader 
ship,  because  John  Brown  was  determined  to  burn  the  entire 
town  of  Fort  Scott  to  the  ground,  whereas  Montgomery  was 
opposed  to  violence  and  bloodshed  and  was  exceedingly  vexed 
at  the  killing  of  Little.61  Governor  Medary  was  so  alarmed 
by  the  attack  on  Fort  Scott  that  he  at  once  applied  for  four 
companies  of  Federal  cavalry,  and  for  600  arms  and  10,000 
rounds  of  ammunition  with  which  to  equip  some  militia.62 

There  was  in  store  for  him,  and  for  the  Governor  of  Mis 
souri,  an  even  greater  shock.  On  the  iQth  of  December  began 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  incidents  in  John  Brown's  life, 
without  which  its  warfare  against  slavery  would  hardly  have 
seemed  complete.  Certainly,  nothing  could  have  wound  up 
his  final  visit  to  Kansas  in  a  more  dramatic  way.  This  was 
his  incursion  into  Missouri  and  the  liberation  of  eleven  slaves 
by  force  of  arms.  While,  as  already  recorded,  Brown  had 
taken  two  slaves  out  of  Kansas  to  freedom  before  this  whole 
sale  liberation,  and  was  throughout  his  life  an  ever-ready 
agent  of  the  Underground  Railroad,  he  was  at  no  time  espe 
cially  interested  in  this  piecemeal  method  of  weakening 
slavery.  It  was  to  his  mind  wasting  time,  when  a  bold  attack 
might  liberate  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  slaves.  Yet,  when 
on  December  19,  1858,  a  slave  crossed  the  Missouri  line  and 
told  to  George  Gill  the  story  of  his  impending  fate,  John 
Brown  promptly  and  heartily  closed  with  his  follower's  sug 
gestion  that  here  was  just  the  right  opportunity  to  "carry 
the  war  into  Africa."  63 

"As  I  was  scouting  down  the  line,"  relates  Mr.  Gill,  "I  ran 
across  a  colored  man,  whose  ostensible  purpose  was  the  selling  of 
brooms.  .  .  .  I  found  that  his  name  was  Jim  Daniels;  that  his  wife, 
self,  and  babies  belonged  to  an  estate  and  were  to  be  sold  at  an  ad 
ministrator's  sale  in  the  immediate  future.  His  present  business  was 
not  the  selling  of  brooms  particularly,  but  to  find  help  to  get  himself, 


368  JOHN  BROWN 

family,  and  a  few  friends  in  the  vicinity  away  from  these  threatened 
conditions.  Daniels  was  a  fine-looking  mulatto.  I  immediately 
hunted  up  Brown,  and  it  was  soon  arranged  to  go  the  following 
night  and  give  what  assistance  we  could.  I  am  sure  that  Brown, 
in  his  mind,  was  just  waiting  for  something  to  turn  up;  or,  in  his 
way  of  thinking,  was  expecting  or  hoping  that  '  God  would  pro 
vide  him  a  basis  of  action.'  When  this  came  he  hailed  it  as  heaven 
sent." 

Shubel  Morgan  decided  to  lead  a  party  of  ten  or  more  to 
the  home  of  Harvey  G.  Hicklan,  or  Hicklin,  Daniels's  tem 
porary  master,  while  Stevens,  Tidd,  Hazlett  and  others,  to 
the  number  of  eight,  were  to  visit  other  plantations  and  rescue 
one  or  two  more  slaves  who  desired  to  drink  of  the  cup  of 
liberty.  On  the  night  of  the  2Oth  the  two  bands  slowly  took 
their  way  into  Missouri.  With  Brown  were  a  well-known 
horse-thief,  " Pickles"  by  designation,  Charles  Jennison, 
Jeremiah  Anderson,  Gill,  Kagi  and  two  young  men  by  the 
name  of  Ayres,  in  addition  to  one  or  two  others.  At  midnight 
Hicklan's  door  was  quickly  forced,  and  then,  with  pointed 
revolvers,  he  was  informed  of  the  mission  of  the  raider? 
v Brown  had  decided  to  take  some  of  the  personal  proper' 
of  the  estate  to  which  the  slaves  belonged,  in  order  to  main 
tain  them.  It  was  not  easy  to  differentiate  between  Hick 
lan's  property  and  that  of  the  Lawrence  estate,  and  Gill,  who 
was  told  off  to  prevent  plundering,  confessed  that  he  found 
his  task  a  difficult  one.  "I  soon  discovered,"  he  says,  "that 
watches  and  other  articles  were  being  taken;  some  of  our 
number  proved  to  be  mere  adventurers,  ready  to  take  from 
friend  or  foe  as  opportunity  offered."  In  this  they  were  not 
different  from  some  other  Free  State  marauders,  who  were 
often  willing  to  line  their  pockets  while  helping  the  cause  of 
liberty.  Mr.  Hicklan  always  insisted  that: 

"Nothing  that  was  taken  was  ever  recovered.  I  learn  that  it  was 
stated  by  John  Brown  that  he  made  his  men  return  all  the  property 
they  had  taken  from  me.  This  is  not  true.  They  did  not  give  any 
thing  back.  Brown  said  to  me  that  we  might  get  our  property  back 
if  we  could ;  that  he  defied  us  and  the  whole  United  States  to  follow 
him.  He  and  his  men  seemed  anxious  to  take  more  from  me  than 
they  did,  for  they  ransacked  the  house  in  search  of  money,  and  I 
suppose  they  would  have  taken  it  if  they  had  found  it.  ...  What 
I  have  stated  is  the  truth,  and  I  am  willing  to  swear  to  it.  I  do 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  369 

not  hold  any  particular  malice  or  prejudice  on  account  of  these  old 
transactions.  Old  things  have  passed  away,  but  the  truth  can  never 
pass  away."  M 

From  Hicklan's,  it  was  but  three-quarters  of  a  mile  to  the 
residence  of  John  Larue,  where  five  more  slaves  were  liber 
ated  ;  thence,  taking  with  them  John  B.  Larue  and  a  Dr.  Ervin, 
a  guest  of  the  family,  as  prisoners,  Brown  and  his  men  re 
turned  to  Kansas.  According  to  pro-slavery  accounts: 

"Besides  the  negroes,  Brown  took  from  the  Lawrence  estate  two 
good  horses,  a  yoke  of  oxen,  a  good  wagon,  harness,  saddles,  a  con 
siderable  quantity  of  provisions,  bacon,  flour,  meal,  coffee,  sugar, 
etc.,  all  of  the  bedding  and  clothing  of  the  negroes,  Hicklin's  shot 
gun,  over-coat,  boots,  and  many  other  articles  belonging  to  the 
whites.  From  Larue  were  taken  five  negroes,  six  head  of  horses,  har 
ness,  a  wagon,  a  lot  of  bedding  and  clothing,  provisions,  and,  in  short, 
all  the  'loot'  available  and  portable." 

Meanwhile,  Stevens's  expedition  had  released  but  one  slave, 
and  that  at  the  cost  of  the  owner's  life.  David  Cruise,  a 
wealthy  settler,  had  a  woman  slave  whom  the  Daniels  party 
wished  to  take  along  on  their  journey  toward  the  North  Star. 
Stevens  had  hardly  entered  the  house  when  he  thought  that 
Mr.  Cruise  was  reaching  for  a  weapon.  He  fired  instantly  and 
the  old  man  dropped  dead.  A  thirteen-year-old  son,  who  had 
recognized  Hazlett,  afterwards  charged  him  with  the  crime. 
But  Stevens  freely  admitted  the  killing,  though  it  weighed 
heavily  upon  him.  Once,  while  at  the  Kennedy  Farm,  just 
before  the  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry,  he  was  asked  to  tell  of  it,  and 
consented  to  if  not  urged  again,  for,  he  said,  "  I  dislike  to  talk 
of  it."  He  went,  he  declared,66  to  the  cabin  and  demanded  the 
girl.  The  old  man  asked  him  in.  Thoughtlessly  he  entered, 
when  the  old  man  slipped  behind  him,  locked  the  door  and 
"pulled  a  gun."  It  became  instantly  a  case  of  shoot  first. 
"You  might  call  it  a  case  of  self-defence,"  asserted  Stevens, 
"or  you  might  also  say  that  I  had  no  business  in  there,  and 
that  the  old  man  was  right."  Subsequently  the  Cruise  family 
also  charged  wholesale  looting  of  the  house,  the  taking  of  two 
yoke  of  oxen,  a  wagon-load  of  provisions,  eleven  mules  and 
two  horses.  It  was  also  declared  that  a  valuable  mule  was 
taken  from  another  neighbor,  Hugh  Martin.67 


370  JOHN  BROWN 

Naturally,  the  death  of  Mr.  Cruise  created  great  excitement 
in  Missouri,  for,  Stevens's  narrative  to  the  contrary  notwith 
standing,  he  ranked  as  a  peaceful,  law-abiding  citizen,  accus 
tomed  to  minding  his  own  business.  This  murder  instantly 
imperilled  the  safety  of  all  the  Kansas  settlements  near  the 
border  line,  for  it  was  wholly  unprovoked  and  without  a 
shadow  of  the  usual  apology,  that  Cruise  had  been  guilty  of 
outrages  upon  the  people  of  Kansas.  In  1856  such  an  event 
would  have  been  excuse  enough  for  a  wholesale  military  inva 
sion  of  the  Territory.  As  it  was,  Montgomery  found  it  wise  to 
be  more  than  ever  vigilant  in  the  protection  of  the  border. 
Stevens  himself  was  not  naturally  bloodthirsty,  but  was  the 
bravest  of  all  Brown's  men.  Gill  says  of  him,  that  he  "  was  one 
of  nature's  noblemen  if  there  ever  was  one.  Generous  and 
brave,  impulsive  and  loving,  one  cannot  speak  too  well  or  too 
kindly  of  him."  68 

But  the  result  of  the  killing  was  bad  enough.  The  Harrisoh- 
ville,  Missouri,  Democrat  called  the  raiders  robbers  and  assas 
sins,  and  urged  the  Governor  to  do  "something  to  protect  our 
people."  69  The  Wyandotte  City  Western  Argus  declared  that 
Montgomery,  who  was  first  charged  with  being  one  of  the 
raiders,  and  Brown  "  will  have  a  heavy  account  to  settle  some 
day  —  for  surely  a  terrible  retribution  will  come  to  them 
sooner  or  later."  It  added  that  their  "infamous  deeds  destroy 
the  prospects  of  Territorial  advancement,"  and  would  pre 
vent  the  coming  of  emigrants  next  spring.70  The  Lawrence 
newspapers  were  also  hostile  to  the  Missouri  adventure,  even 
the  Republican  criticising  it,  after  having  been  urged  to  do  so 
by  George  A.  Crawford  at  Governor  Medary's  request.  The 
editor  of  the  Leavenworth  Herald  wrote  from  Jefferson  City, 
Missouri,  January  21,  1859,  that  "in  the  present  state  of 
affairs,  the  people  of  Kansas  owe  it  to  themselves,  to  the 
country,  and  to  justice  and  right  to  put  down  these  outlaws 
and  preserve  the  peace.  There  is  no  ^arthly  excuse  for  their 
invasion  of  Missouri."  71  General  Lane,  seeing  his  opportunity 
for  another  piece  of  bravado,  wrote  on  January  9  to  Governor 
Medary,  offering,  if  given  proper  authority  by  him,  to  produce 
both  Brown  and  Montgomery,  after  having  procured  their 
disbandment,  "before  the  Kansas  Legislature,  now  in  session, 
or  before  any  tribunal  you  may  name."  This  offer  elicited 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  371 

only  a  diplomatic  letter  of  thanks  from  Governor  Medary, 
and  led  the  vicious  Herald  of  Freedom  to  affirm 72  that,  how 
ever  Lane's  offer  might  appear  to  others,  it  was  to  its  editors 
"conclusive  evidence  of  the  complicity  of  Lane  in  those 
disturbances,"  —a  ridiculous  assertion.  The  St.  Louis  Mis 
souri-Democrat  printed,  early  in  January,  a  letter  from  an 
Osawatomie  correspondent,  who  thus  portrayed  the  effect 
of  Brown's  raid,  before  describing  it  in  detail: 73 

"  Hardly  has  the  mind  cooled  down  from  the  fever  heat  into  which 
it  was  thrown  by  the  Ft.  Scott  tragedy,  before  it  is  wrought  up  to 
a  frenzied  condition  by  the  enactment  of  new  scenes  in  the  present 
exciting  drama.  Hardly  is  the  ear  saluted  by  one  piece  of  startling 
intelligence  before  it  is  stunned  by  additional  news,  of  a  nature  so 
revolting  that  the  mind  grows  dizzy  with  horror,  and  involuntarily 
inquires  whether  we  are  not  relapsing  into  the  barbarism  of  the 
middle  ages.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  killing  of  Cruise  was  pre 
meditated,  but  finding  himself  attacked  by  robbers,  he  resisted,  as 
was  natural,  and  as  he  had  a  right  to  do,  and  he  was  shot  down 
remorselessly  by  the  fiend  who  had  attacked  him.  I  have  yet  to  see 
the  first  free  State  man  of  position  in  or  around  Osawatomie,  who 
does  not  condemn  in  the  strongest  terms,  any  going  into  Missouri 
or  committing  depredations." 

Finally,  the  President  of  the  United  States  offered  a  reward 
of  $250  for  the  arrest  of  Brown  and  Montgomery,  and  the 
Governor  of  Missouri  $3000  for  the  capture  of  Brown.74 

With  his  two  white  prisoners  and  the  slaves,  Brown  had 
moved  slowly  back  to  Kansas,  meeting  Stevens's  party  with 
its  unhappy  report  of  Cruise's  death.  As  soon  as  the  sun  was 
well  up,  the  whole  party  drew  aside  into  a  deep-wooded  ravine, 
some  distance  from  the  road.  Remaining  in  camp  through 
out  the  day,  they  resumed  their  journey  after  dark,  and  at 
midnight  on  Wednesday  reached  the  home  of  Augustus  Wat 
tles,  two  miles  north  of  Mound  City.  Montgomery  and  a  few 
of  his  men  were  sleeping,  as  Mrs.  Emma  Wattles  Morse  has 
related  the  story,76  in  Wattles's  loft,  and  were  awakened 

"by  the  chattering  and  laughing  of  the  darkies  as  they  warmed 
around  the  stove  while  Mrs.  Wattles  was  getting  supper.  Mont 
gomery  put  his  head  down  the  stairway,  exclaiming:  'How  is  this, 
Capt.  Brown?  Whom  have  you  here?'  Brown  replied,  waving  his 
hat  around  the  circle,  'Allow  me  to  introduce  to  you  a  part  of  my 
family.  Observe  I  have  carried  the  war  into  Africa.'  After  supper 


372  JOHN  BROWN 

the  women  and  children  were  taken  to  the  house  of  J.  O.  Wattles, 
only  a  few  steps  away,  the  men  went  to  their  wagons,  while  Brown 
and  two  of  his  men  lay  on  the  floor  for  the  two  or  three  hours  remain 
ing  of  the  night." 

At  dawn  on  Thursday  the  caravan  started  again,  and  this 
time  without  Brown.  Two  of  his  men  accompanied  the  one 
ox-team,  which  was  sent  forward,  one  going  ahead  to  act  as 
pilot.  But  the  latter  turned  back  to  "see  the  fun,"  believing 
that  Brown  was  going  to  have  some  fighting  with  the  pur 
suers  hourly  expected.  Thus  the  man  driving  the  team  went 
on  alone  with  his  valuable  living  freight.  It  was  near  sunset 
and  quite  cold  when  they  arrived  at  Osawatomie,  Mr.  Adair 
stated,  and  it  was  Christmas  Eve  as  well.  Mr.  Adair  wrote,76 
in  recalling  the  arrival  of  this  pathetic  band  of  dusky  fugi 
tives,  that: 

"The  fugitive  slave  law  was  still  in  force.  I  realized  in  some 
measure  the  responsibility  of  receiving  them,  consulted  my  wife, 
calling  her  attention  to  our  responsibility,  but  would  do  as  she  said. 
She  considered  the  subject  for  a  few  moments,  then  said:  'I  cannot 
turn  them  away.'  By  this  time  the  team  was  in  the  road  in  front  of 
the  house.  All  were  taken  round  to  the  backyard,  and  the  colored 
people  were  brought  into  the  back  kitchen  and  kept  there  that 
night.  ..." 

It  was  at  two  A.  M.  of  the  morning  after  Christmas  that  the 
fugitives  were  finally  placed  in  the  old  abandoned  preemption 
cabin  on  the  south  fork  of  the  Pottawatomie,  south  of  Osa 
watomie,  belonging  to  a  young  Vermonter,  Charles  Severns.77 
Of  unhewn  hickory  poles,  neither  chinked  nor  daubed,  with 
out  door,  floor,  or  windows,  it  must  nevertheless  have  seemed 
a  haven  of  rest  and  safety  to  the  negroes  escaping  from  the 
evil  fate  which  would  have  been  theirs,  had  they  gone  on  the 
auction-block  in  Missouri.  If  they  were  not  beyond  danger  of 
recapture,  there  were  kind  neighbors  to  bring  them  food,  give 
them  encouragement  and  stand  guard  over  them.  There 
were  friendly  armed  men  constantly  watching  the  cabin,  which 
could  be  seen  for  a  long  distance  from  several  sides.  The 
slaves  were  armed  and  told  on  no  account  to  surrender.  They 
quickly  made  the  cabin  habitable,  building  a  chimney  of 
prairie  sod,  and  the  naturally  gay  spirits  of  the  race  bubbled 
over  so  that  frequently  they  had  to  be  cautioned  to  be 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  373 

quiet.  Several  times  they  were  on  the  verge  of  discovery,  but 
the  danger  was  always  staved  off.  Pottawatomie  Creek  for 
twenty-five  miles  southwest  of  Osawatomie,  with  all  its  tribu 
taries,  was  in  vain  searched  by  armed  Missourians,  who  gave 
special  attention  to  the  timber  along  the  streams.  The  open 
prairie  was  after  all  the  safest  place. 

Meanwhile,  Shubel  Morgan,  whose  raid  into  Missouri  was 
the  eighth  undertaken  by  Kansas  Free  State  men,  was  in 
readiness  to  repel  a  counter-invasion.  William  Hutchinson, 
the  Kansas  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Times,  who  had 
come  South  to  see  for  himself  how  things  stood,  met  John 
Brown  at  noon  on  Thursday,  December  30,  and  went  with  him 
to  Wattles's  home.78  He  wrote  to  his  wife  a  few  days  later: 

"Have  heard  the  full  history  of  Brown's  going  into  Missouri  and 
shall  justify  him.  I  met  with  Brown  and  his  boys  about  noon  that 
day,  Thursday.  We  went  to  Wattles  that  night  together,  and  we 
were  together  all  night  and  next  day,  talking  much  with  him  and 
Wattles  and  others  who  called  on  us.  They  took  special  pains  to 
have  a  war  council  on  my  account,  and  appeared  to  have  great  con 
fidence  in  the  opinion  of  'the  man  from  Lawrence,'  as  some  termed 
me.  I  am  so  vain  as  to  think  my  advice  did  have  some  good  effect. 
I  recommended  one  more  trial  for  a  settlement  before  resorting 
to  rash  measures,  and  they  accepted  my  plans,  and  we  drew  up  a 
paper  for  signatures  and  Wattles  started  to  circulate  it  among  both 
parties." 

This  was  undoubtedly  a  second  draft  of  the  John  Brown 
plan  referred  to  above.  Mr.  Hutchinson  in  later  years  had  a 
vivid  recollection  of  that  night  with  John  Brown. 

"Our  bed  was  a  mattress  made  of  hay,  laid  upon  the  floor  of  the 
second  story.  Sleep  seemed  to  be  a  secondary  matter  with  him.  I 
am  sure  he  talked  on  that  night  till  the  small  hours,  and  his  all 
absorbing  theme  was  '  my  work,'  '  my  great  duty,'  '  my  mission,'  etc., 
meaning  of  course,  the  liberation  of  the  slaves.  He  seemed  to  have 
no  other  object  in  life,  no  other  hope  or  ambition.  The  utmost  sin 
cerity  pervaded  his  every  thought  and  word." 

From  Wattles's  home  Brown  went  into  camp  on  Turkey 
Creek,  not  far  from  Fort  Scott,  where  he  witnessed  the  begin 
ning  of  the  last  calendar  year  of  his  life.  On  January  2  he 
formally  wrote  to  Montgomery,79  asking  him  to  hold  himself 
in  readiness  to  call  out  reinforcements  at  a  moment's  notice, 


374  JOHN  BROWN 

to  prevent  a  possible  invasion  because  of  a  raid  into  Missouri. 
Montgomery,  meanwhile,  was  eagerly  at  work  for  peace,  and 
attended  with  Mr.  Hutchinson  a  peace  meeting  three  miles 
from  Mapleton.  Mr.  Hutchinson  wrote  the  resolutions  that 
were  adopted. 

"Montgomery,"  he  says,  "made  a  good  speech,  and  every  man  on 
the  ground  seemed  fully  to  endorse  him.  .  .  .  The  whole  country 
along  the  border  is  in  arms  and  I  fear  the  end  is  distant.  .  .  .  The 
blood  is  up  on  this  side  and  they  won't  stop  now  for  trifles,  from  late 
reports.  To-day,  Jan.  3rd,  some  500  men  from  Fort  Scott  crossed 
the  river  (Little  Osage)  near  the  State  line  going  North,  and  we  all 
expect  warm  work  is  near." 

Fortunately  for  all  concerned,  there  was  no  great  bloodshed, 
—  merely  skirmishes,  in  one  of  which  three  Free  State  men 
were  wounded.  In  these  engagements  Kagi  commanded,  for 
Brown  had  already  gone  North,  —  he  reached  Osawatomie 
on  January  II.  The  pro-slavery  forces  were  a  posse  bent  on 
capturing  the  Free  State  invaders  of  Missouri.80 

Early  in  January,  Shubel  Morgan  was  visited  by  George 
A.  Crawford,  a  Free  State  Democrat,  who  went  South  at 
Governor  Medary's  request,  and  reported  both  to  him  and 
to  President  Buchanan.  Writing  to  Eli  Thayer,  of  Worcester, 
on  August  4,  1879,  Mr.  Crawford  thus  described  in  part  this 
interview  near  the  Trading  Post  : 

"I  protested  to  the  Captain  against  this  violence  [the  killing  of 
Cruise].  We  were  settlers  —  he  was  not.  He  could  strike  a  blow 
and  leave.  The  retaliatory  blow  would  fall  on  us.  Being  a  free-state 
man,  I  myself  was  held  personally  responsible  by  pro-slavery  ruf 
fians  in  Ft.  Scott  for  the  acts  of  Capt.  Brown.  One  of  these  ruf 
fians  —  Brockett  —  when  they  gave  me  notice  to  leave  the  town, 
said,  'When  a  snake  bites  me  I  don't  go  hunting  for  that  particular 
snake.  I  kill  the  first  snake  I  come  to.'  I  called  Capt.  Brown's 
attention  to  the  fact  that  we  were  at  peace  with  Missouri  —  that 
our  Legislature  was  then  in  the  hands  of  Free  State  men  to  make  the 
laws  —  that  even  in  our  disturbed  counties  of  Bourbon  and  Linn 
they  were  in  a  majority  and  had  elected  officers  both  to  make  and 
execute  the  laws  —  that  without  peace  we  could  have  no  immigra 
tion  —  that  no  Southern  immigration  was  coming  —  that  agitation 
such  as  his  was  only  keeping  our  Northern  friends  away,  etc.,  etc. 
The  old  man  replied  that  it  was  no  pleasure  to  him,  an  old  man,  to 
be  living  in  the  saddle,  away  from  home  and  family,  exposing  his 
life,  and  if  the  Free  State  men  of  Kansas  felt  that  they  no  longer 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  375 

needed  him  he  would  be  glad  to  go.  ...  I  think  the  conversation 
made  an  impression  on  him,  for  he  soon  after  went  to  his  self-sac 
rifice  at  Harper's  Ferry."81 

To  Brown's  final  visit  to  his  staunch  friend  Wattles  especial 
interest  attaches,  for  it  was  at  this  time  that  he  produced  the 
'Parallels'  published  in  the  New  York  Tribune  and  else 
where,  which  attracted  great  attention  and  are  more  often 
quoted  in  connection  with  Brown  than  anything  else  except 
his  final  address  to  the  Virginia  jury.  Mr.  Wattles  had 
severely  censured  his  old  friend  "for  going  into  Missouri  con 
trary  to  our  agreement  and  getting  these  slaves."  He  replied, 
Mr.  Wattles  testified  in  1860:  82  "  I  considered  the  matter  well; 
you  will  have  no  more  attacks  from  Missouri;  I  shall  now 
leave  Kansas;  probably  you  will  never  see  me  again;  I  con 
sider  it  my  duty  to  draw  the  scene  of  the  excitement  to  some 
other  part  of  the  country."  Montgomery  and  Kagi  were 
parties  to  this  discussion  as  to  the  storm  his  raid  had  created. 
Brown  had  been  writing  letters  as  they  talked.83  Finally, 
turning  to  the  others  with  a  manuscript  in  his  hand,  he  said : 
"Gentlemen,  I  would  like  to  have  your  attention  for  a  few 
minutes.  I  usually  leave  the  newspaper  work  to  Kagi,  but 
this  time  I  have  something  to  say  myself."  He  then  read 
the  'Parallels,'  which  he  had  dated  at  the  Trading  Post,  lest 
the  usual  date  line,  Moneka,  prove  a  cause  of  trouble  to  the 
staunch  Wattles  household.  They  are  as  follows: 

TRADING  POST,  KANSAS,  Jany.  1859. 

Gents :  You  will  greatly  oblige  a  humble  friend  by  allowing  the 
use  of  your  colums  while  I  briefly  state  two  parallels,  in  my  poor 
way.  Not  One  year  ago  Eleven  quiet  citizens  of  this  neighborhood 
(viz)  Wm  Robertson,  Wm  Colpetzer,  Amos  Hall,  Austin  Hall,  John 
Campbell,  Asa  Snyder,  Thos  Stilwell,  Wm  Hairgrove,  Asa  Hair- 
grove,  Patrick  Ross,  and  B.  L.  Reed,  —  were  gathered  up  from 
their  work,  &  their  homes  by  an  armed  force  (under  One  Hamil 
ton)  &  without  trial ;  or  opportunity  to  speak  in  own  defence  were 
formed  into  a  line  &  all  but  one  shot,  Five  killed  &  Five  wounded. 
One  fell  unharmed,  pretending  to  be  dead.  All  were  left  for  dead. 
The  only  crime  charged  against  them  was  that  of  being  Free-State 
men.  Now,  I  inquire  what  action  has  ever,  since  the  occurrence  in 
May  last,  been  taken  by  either  the  President  of  the  United  States; 
the  Governor  of  Missouri,  or  the  Governor  of  Kansas,  or  any  of  their 
tools ;  or  by  any  proslavery  or  administration  man  ?  to  ferret  out 
and  punish  the  perpetrators  of  this  crime? 


376  JOHN  BROWN 

Now  for  the  other  parallel.  On  Sunday  the  iQth  of  December  a 
negro  called  Jim  came  over  to  the  Osage  settlement  from  Missouri 
&  stated  that  he  together  with  his  Wife,  Two  Children,  &  another 
Negro  man  were  to  be  sold  within  a  day  or  Two  &  beged  for  help 
to  get  away.  On  Monday  (the  following)  night,  Two  small  com 
panies  were  made  up  to  go  to  Missouri  &  forcibly  liberate  the  Five 
slaves  together  with  other  slaves.  One  of  these  companies  I  assumed 
to  direct.  We  proceeded  to  the  place  surrounded  the  buildings  lib 
erated  the  slaves  &  also  took  certain  property  supposed  to  belong  to 
the  estate.  We  however  learned  before  leaveing  that  a  portion  of  the 
articles  we  had  taken  belonged  to  a  man  living  on  the  plantation  as  a 
tenant,  &  who  was  supposed  to  have  no  interest  in  the  estate.  We 
promptly  returned  to  him  all  we  had  taken  so  far  I  believe.  We  then 
went  to  another  plantation,  where  we  freed  Five  more  slaves,  took 
some  property;  &  Two  white  men.  We  moved  all  slowly  away  into 
the  Territory  for  some  distance,  &  then  sent  the  White  men  back, 
telling  them  to  follow  us  as  soon  as  they  chose  to  do  so.  The  other 
company  freed  One  female  slave,  took  some  property;  &,  as  I  am 
informed,  killed  One  White  man  (the  master),  who  fought  against 
the  liberation.  Now  for  a  comparison.  Eleven  persons  are  forcibly 
restored  to  their  natural ;  &  inalienable  rights,  with  but  one  man 
killed ;  &  all  "  Hell  is  stirred  from  beneath."  It  is  currently  reported 
that  the  Governor  of  Missouri  has  made  a  requisition  upon  the 
Governor  of  Kansas  for  the  delivery  of  all  such  as  were  concerned  in 
the  last-named  "dreadful  outrage."  The  Marshal  of  Kansas  is  said 
to  be  collecting  a  possee  of  Missouri  (not  Kansas)  men  at  W7est  Point 
in  Missouri  a  little  town  about  Ten  miles  distant,  to  "  enforce  the 
laws,"  &  all  proslavery  conservative  Free-State,  and  dough-faced 
men  &  Administration  tools  are  filled  with  holy  horror. 

Consider  the  two  cases,  and  the  action  of  the  Administration 
party. 

Respectfully  yours, 

JOHN  BROWN." 

Indubitably,  the  parallel  was  an  effective  one.  The  theft  of 
black  human  property  was  always  the  most  heinous  offence 
known  in  the  South  during  slavery  days;  and,  although  he  had 
expressed  due  horror  at  the  Hamilton  massacre,  Governor 
Denver  had  neither  requisitioned  the  Governor  of  Missouri 
for  the  delivery  of  Hamilton's  criminals,  nor  offered  a  reward 
for  their  apprehension.  Now,  however,  the  case  was  different.85 
Governor  Medary  sent  a  message  to  the  Legislature  on  Janu 
ary  II,  denouncing  both  Brown  and  Montgomery,  refusing  to 
give  the  names  of  his  informants  as  to  their  movements  in 
Linn  and  Bourbon  counties,  and  asking  the  Legislature  to  act 
at  once,  besides  repeating  his  offer  of  $250  reward  each  for 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  377 

the  arrest  of  Brown  and  Montgomery.86  To  this  a  committee 
of  the  Legislature  made  a  remarkably  spirited  and  able  reply. 
While  censuring  Brown  and  Montgomery,  and  attributing  to 
them  the  "ruin  and  desolation"  that  had  "settled  down  on 
two  of  the  most  beautiful  counties  in  Kansas,"  the  committee 
was  "clearly  of  the  opinion  that  all  armed  bands  should  be 
dispersed,  and  the  law  should  be  sustained.  Kansas  has  too 
long  suffered  in  her  good  name  from  the  acts  of  lawless  men 
and  from  the  corruption  of  Federal  officers."  As  to  the  Federal 
Government's  offer  of  a  reward,  the  committee  was  emphatic 
in  its  statement  that  this  policy  would  not  succeed.  "The 
man  of  Kansas,"  it  said,  "that  would,  for  a  reward,  deliver  up 
a  man  to  the  General  Government,  would  sink  into  the  grave 
of  an  Arnold  or  a  Judas.  .  .  .  Such  have  been  the  acts  of  the 
General  Government  in  this  Territory,  that  public  sentiment 
will  not  permit  any  person  to  receive  the  gold  of  the  General 
Government  as  a  bribe  to  do  a  duty."  87  There  being  a  mi 
nority  report  of  a  different  character,  the  Legislature  referred 
the  whole  matter  to  a  select  committee,  which  brought  in  a 
harmless  report  that  the  Legislature  should  uphold  the  Gov 
ernor  in  enforcing  the  law. 

Montgomery  promptly  wrote,  on  January  15,  a  long  letter 
to  the  Lawrence  Republican™  setting  forth  actual  conditions 
and  saying  among  other  things:  "For  Brown's  doings  in  Mis 
souri  I  am  not  responsible.  I  know  nothing  of  either  his  plans 
or  intentions.  Brown  keeps  his  own  counsels,  and  acts  on  his 
own  responsibility.  I  hear  much  said  about  Montgomery  and 
his  company.  I  have  no  company.  We  have  had  no  organiza 
tion  since  the  5th  day  of  July."  Montgomery,  with  splendid 
courage,  followed  this  letter  up  in  person,  arriving  in  Lawrence 
on  January  18,  and,  boldly  walking  into  court  in  the  after 
noon,  surrendered  himself  to  Judge  Elmore,  by  whom  he  was 
turned  over  to  the  sheriff.  As  the  only  indictment  pending 
against  him  was  one  for  robbing  a  post-office,  this  border 
leader  was  promptly  released  on  four  thousand  dollars'  bail. 
Two  days  later,  he  spoke  for  nearly  three  hours  before  a  large 
audience  in  the  Lawrence  Congregational  Church,  detailing 
the  whole  history  of  the  border  troubles.89  Frequently  inter 
rupting  him  with  applause,  the  audience,  at  the  conclusion 
of  his  story,  gave  three  cheers  for  him,  and  three  more  for 


378  JOHN  BROWN 

"  Old  John  Brown. "  The  next  day,  Montgomery  went  back  to 
the  South,  where  he  continued  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  peace. 
On  February  2  he  returned  to  Lawrence  with  six  of  his  men, 
who  likewise  surrendered  to  Judge  Elmore,  to  Governor 
Medary's  great  satisfaction.90 

As  for  John  Brown,  he  was  now  ready  to  leave  the  Territory 
for  the  last  time.  Of  constructive  work  there  was  no  more  to 
his  credit  than  when  he  left  the  Territory  in  1856.  The  terror 
of  his  name  undoubtedly  acted  as  a  deterrent  while  he  was  on 
the  Missouri  line.  But  there  had  been  peace  in  Linn  and 
Bourbon  counties,  and  would  have  been,  had  he  not  appeared, 
until  Montgomery  rightly  or  wrongly  assumed  the  offensive 
in  November,  —  except  for  the  usual  lawlessness  of  a  frontier 
where  the  courts  are  not  respected.  As  Montgomery  said, 
Shubel  Morgan  kept  his  own  counsels  and  went  his  own  way, 
and  the  sole  act  of  any  significance  to  be  credited  to  him  during 
this  six  months  in  southern  Kansas  is  the  capture  of  the  slaves. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  presence  in  Linn,  after  deducting 
properly  the  numerous  acts  wrongfully  attributed  to  him  and 
his  men,  was  in  itself  the  cause  of  excitement  and  strife.  It 
was  an  incentive  to  men  of  the  Weaver  type  to  spread  stories 
of  impending  trouble  for  their  own  ends.  Certain  it  is  that 
the  Missouri  raid,  in  violation  of  his  agreement,  caused  many 
peaceful  Free  State  settlers  to  flee  their  homes  for  fear  of  vio 
lence,  and  might  have  resulted  seriously  but  for  the  efforts 
of  certain  Missourians  to  keep  the  peace,  and  for  the  pusilla 
nimity  of  those  who  wished  to  retaliate  but  feared  the  conse 
quences.  In  Missouri,  however,  that  raid  had  caused  sufficient 
alarm  to  convince  Brown  again  of  the  telling  effect  upon  the 
crumbling  foundations  of  slavery  of  a  similar  undertaking  on  a 
larger  scale.  "All  the  slaves  in  the  thickest  slave  settlements 
in  Missouri  for  twenty  or  thirty  miles  have  been  carried  into 
Texas  or  Arkansas,  or  are  closely  guarded  by  a  large  force 
every  night,"  reported,  on  January  15,  a  Tribune  correspondent 
from  Lawrence.91 

It  is  not  to  be  believed  that  if  the  Massachusetts  friends  of 
John  Brown  had  been  fully  informed  as  to  what  little  good  he 
had  achieved,  after  they  sent  him  back  to  Kansas,  or  of  the 
results  of  his  surrounding  himself  with  armed  followers,  they 
would  have  been  wholly  content  with  the  outlay  they  had 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  379 

made  to  send  him  there.  Gerrit  Smith  and  others  rejoiced  in 
the  Missouri  liberations,92  but  it  does  not  appear  that  they 
were  aware  that  quiet  was  restored  as  soon  as  Brown  left  the 
Territory  and  Montgomery  decided  to  work  for  peace.  This 
was  finally  assured  by  the  Legislature's  passage  of  an  act 
granting  amnesty  to  all  who  had  committed  crimes  in  Linn 
and  Bourbon  and  four  other  counties.  This  act  was  approved 
by  Governor  Medary  on  February  n,93  when  Brown  was  on 
his  way  out  of  the  Territory.  Thereafter  there  was  peace  and 
quiet  in  Kansas  until  the  Civil  War  came  with  its  renewal  of 
strife,  of  anarchy  and  border  lawlessness,  with  the  Quantrell 
massacre  at  Lawrence  and  the  other  episodes  of  the  long  war 
between  brothers. 

Brown  parted  about  January  20  from  his  kinspeople  at 
Osawatomie,  and,  with  a  disregard  and  contempt  akin  to 
Montgomery's  for  the  rewards  offered  for  his  arrest,  set  out 
with  the  liberated  slaves  for  the  long  journey  to  Canada,  with 
Gill  as  his  sole  helper  on  the  road  to  Lawrence.  On  the  1 1  th 
of  January  he  had  written  to  his  family  94  of  his  middling 
health  and  his  regret  that  he  had  been  unable  to  finish  up  his 
business  as  rapidly  as  he  had  hoped  to,  when  he  wrote  pre 
viously  (December  2).  He  was  still  unable  to  give  an  address 
for  them  to  write  to,  and  he  made  no  reference  to  his  rescue  of 
the  slaves,  or  to  his  impending  departure  for  the  East.  This 
was  delayed  by  the  arrival  of  a  twelfth  fugitive,  a  baby  born 
to  one  of  the  slave  women ;  to  it  was  given  the  name  of  John 
Brown.  "A  day  or  two  before  starting,"  records  Mr.  Gill: 

"  I  had  learned  of  a  span  of  horses  held  by  a  Missourian  stopping 
temporarily  a  few  miles  from  Osawatomie,  and  the  suspicion  was 
well  grounded  that  he  had  appropriated  them  from  free  state 
owners.  At  Garnett  I  acquainted  Stevens  and  Tidd  with  the  fact, 
who  set  out  the  same  evening  that  we  did,  to  replevin  these  horses. 
After  doing  so  they  proceeded  to  Topeka  to  await  us;  Kagi  also 
scouted  ahead  for  some  purpose,  most  probably  to  arrange  stop 
ping  places  for  us,  and  then  went  on  ahead  also  for  Topeka,  leaving 
Brown  and  myself  alone  with  the  colored  folks." 

With  this  reconversion  of  pro-slavery  horses  into  loyal  Free 
State  animals,  Brown's  men  wound  up  their  career  in  south 
eastern  Kansas. 

Shubel  Morgan's  trip  from  the  cabin  near  Garnett  to  Major 


380  JOHN  BROWN 

J.  B.  Abbott's  house  near  Lawrence  was  as  trying  as  it  was 
daring.  Through  mud,  and  then  over  frozen  ground,  without 
a  dollar  of  money  in  their  pockets,  their  shoes  all  but  falling 
apart,  Gill  and  Brown  resolutely  drove  the  slow-going  ox- 
team,  with  its  load  of  women  and  children.95  These  two 
staunch  men  demonstrated  here,  if  ever,  their  willingness  to 
suffer  for  others;  Gill's  feet  were  frozen  when  they  reached 
Major  Abbott's,  on  January  24,  and  "the  old  man,"  Gill 
relates,  "had  fingers,  nose  and  ears  frozen."  From  this  haven 
of  rest  they  sent  the  ox-team  and  wagon  into  Lawrence  to  be 
sold,  and  in  its  place  obtained  horses  and  wagons.  Samuel 
F.  Tappan,  who,  like  Major  Abbott,  had  been  one  of  Bran 
son's  rescuers  in  1855,  loaned  a  two-horse  wagon,  with  Eben 
Archibald  as  driver.96  It  was  while  he  was  staying  with  Major 
Abbott  or  a  near-by  neighbor,  Mr.  Grover,  that  Brown  re 
ceived  a  visit  from  Dr.  John  Doy,  whose  subsequent  mis 
fortune  aroused  indignation  throughout  the  North.  Dr.  Doy 
had  been  asked  to  pilot  a  number  of  negroes  from  Lawrence 
to  safety,  and  it  was  first  agreed  that  he  should  join  forces 
with  Brown.  Circumstances  altered,  however,  and  it  was 
decided  that  they  should  move  separately.  Dr.  Doy  spent  one 
evening  endeavoring  to  induce  Brown  to  change  his  mind,  or 
at  least  to  give  him  part  of  his  small  escort.97  But  Brown  had, 
besides  Archibald,  only  Gill  and  possibly  one  other.  The  next 
day  both  Doy  and  Brown  were  on  their  way.  The  resoluteness 
and  intrepidity  of  the  latter  carried  him  safely  through  to 
Nebraska.  But  where  he  escaped  posses  and  United  States 
troops,  Dr.  Doy  was  easily  taken,  his  negroes  —  two  of  them 
free-born  —  sent  back  to  a  hateful  bondage,  while  Dr.  Doy 
himself  was  sentenced  to  five  years  in  the  Missouri  peniten 
tiary,  to  which  he  would  have  gone,  had  not  the  brave  and  ever 
ready  Major  Abbott  and  other  friends  rescued  him  from  jail, 
in  St.  Joseph,  in  the  nick  of  time. 

Somehow  or  other,  Brown  recruited  his  finances  while  near 
Lawrence,98  and  his  wagons,  when  he  drove  away,  were  creak 
ing  with  the  weight  of  provisions  contributed  by  Major 
Abbott  and  Mr.  Grover.  He  narrowly  escaped  capture  on  the 
road  by  men  who  were  expecting  him  to  come  by  in  an  ox-cart. 
Leaving  Lawrence  on  the  evening  of  the  25th  for  Topeka,  he 
stopped  at  the  residence  of  a  Mr.  Owen,  two  miles  north  of  the 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  381 

town."  There  Gill  dropped  out  to  rest  and  recuperate,  the 
indomitable  Stevens  taking  his  place.  But  there  was  no  rest 
for  Brown.  On  the  28th  his  little  train  reached  Holton  amid 
all  the  discomfort  of  a  driving  prairie  snow-storm.100  Here 
fugitives  and  conductors  alike  were  compelled  to  seek  refuge 
from  the  elements  in  the  tavern,  with  the  result  that  news  of 
their  presence  spread  quickly.  The  following  day  the  fates  were 
clearly  against  them,  for  when  they  reached  their  next  Under 
ground  Railroad  station,  six  miles  away,  the  cabin  of  Abram 
Fuller  on  Straight,  or  Spring,  Creek,  that  stream  was  too  high 
to  ford. 

All  day  Sunday  the  adventurers  rested  in  cabins  near  the 
creek,  while  a  messenger  sent  to  Topeka  called  a  congregation 
out  of  church  to  go  to  Brown's  aid;  for  on  Saturday  Brown 
had  discovered  the  presence  in  his  immediate  neighborhood  of 
a  posse  from  Atchison,  headed  by  Mr.  A.  P.  Wood,  which 
barred  the  way  to  liberty  on  the  other  side  of  the  creek,  —  a 
fact  at  once  triumphantly  announced  to  President  Buchanan 
by  Governor  Medary.101  The  latter  hastily  sent  a  special 
deputy  marshal,  Colby  by  name,  to  Colonel  Sumner,  who  was 
now  commandant  of  Fort  Leavenworth,  with  a  request  for 
troops  to  capture  Brown.102  But  long  before  Colby  and  the 
cavalry  given  him  could  reach  Holton,  that  elusive  bird  for 
whom  the  net  was  spread  had  flown,  —  precisely  as  he  had 
when  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke's  dragoons  so  nearly  captured  him,— 
leaving  Medary  and  Buchanan  to  swallow  their  chagrin 
as  best  they  might.  Their  bete  noir  had  leisurely  traversed 
Kansas,  his  presence  being  known  to  many,  yet  the  Territo 
rial  authorities  had  failed  to  lay  hands  upon  him. 

How  Brown  thus  escaped  from  Kansas  is  both  an  amusing 
and  a  characteristic  story.  His  policy  of  going  to  close  quar 
ters  when  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  again  demonstrated  its 
value  on  this  occasion,  which  has  been  dubbed  the  "  Battle  of 
the  Spurs."  When  the  reinforcements  from  Topeka,  headed 
by  Colonel  John  Ritchie,  arrived,  the  creek  was  still  high  and 
the  crossing  bad.  What  happened  is  told  by  an  eye-witness, 
Llewellyn  L.  Kiene:  103 

"'What  do  you  propose  to  do,  Captain?'  asked  one  of  the  body 
guard. 

"'  Cross  the  creek  and  move  north,'  he  responded,  and  his  lips 


382  JOHN  BROWN 

closed  in  that  familiar,  firm  expression  which  left  no  doubt  as  to  his 
purpose. 

"But  captain,  the  water  is  high,  and  the  Fuller  crossing  is  very 
bad.  I  doubt  if  we  can  get  through.  There  is  a  much  better  ford  5 
miles  up  the  creek,'  said  one  of  the  men  who  had  joined  the  rescuers 
at  Holton. 

"The  old  man  faced  the  guard  and  his  eyes  flashed.  '  I  have  set 
out  on  the  Jim  Lane  road,'  he  said,  'and  I  intend  to  travel  it  straight 
through,  and  there  is  no  use  to  talk  of  turning  aside.  Those  who  are 
afraid  may  go  back,  but  I  will  cross  at  the  Fuller  crossing.  The  Lord 
has  marked  out  a  path  for  me,  and  I  intend  to  follow  it.  We  are 
ready  to  move."1 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  one  faltered.  Gill,  who  had  come 
with  the  rescuers  from  Topeka,  thus  relates  the  story  of  the 
fray  as  he  saw  it: 

"At  noon  the  next  day  [Monday]  we  reached  McClain's  cabins, 
where  we  found  our  company.  I  believe  that  they  were  glad  to  see 
us.  Stevens  had,  awhile  previous  to  our  coming,  gone  out  alone  and 
demanded  a  surrender  from  four  armed  men.  Three  ran.  One  had 
to  drop,  as  a  'bead'  was  drawn  upon  him.  We  now  learned  that 
there  were  about  80  ruffians  waiting  for  us  at  the  ford.  We  num 
bered  22  —  all  told,  of  men,  black  and  white.  We  marched  down 
upon  them.  They  had  as  good  a  position  as  eighty  men  could  wish, 
to  defeat  a  thousand,  but  the  closer  we  got  to  the  ford  the  farther 
they  got  from  it.  We  found  some  of  their  horses.  Our  boys  mounted 
and  gave  chase  to  them ;  succeeded  in  taking  three  or  four  prisoners. 
The  last  that  was  seen  of  the  marshal  was  in  the  direction  of  Le- 
compton,  and  appearances  suggested  the  idea  that  his  mind  was 
fixed  upon  the  fate  of  Lot's  wife." 

In  such  haste  was  the  posse  to  escape  that  two  men  mounted 
one  horse,  and  others  clung  to  the  tails  of  the  horses  of  their 
comrades  without  taking  time  to  mount  their  own.  Such  was 
the  terror  of  John  Brown's  name.  ' '  There  is  a  great  deal  of  the 
old  fighting  spirit  up,"  reported  the  Missouri  Democrat,10*  in 
giving  its  account  of  the  "  Battle  of  the  Spurs."  "The  chase," 
said  the  Leaven  worth  Times, 

"was  a  merry  one  and  closed  by  Brown's  taking  off  three  of  his  pur 
suers  as  prisoners;  with  four  horses,  pistols,  guns,  &c.,  as  legitimate 
plunder.  The  prisoners  were  carried  some  twenty  miles,  and  then 
sent  back  to  Atchison  both  wiser  and  sadder  men.  They  feel  rather 
chop-fallen,  and  vent  their  wrath  on  their  captain,  whom  they  de 
nounce  as  a  blusterer  and  coward.  The  terms  might  be  applied  to 
the  whole  party  as  well,  for  aught  we  know.  Old  Captain  Brown  is 


SHUBEL   MORGAN  383 

not  to  be  taken  by  'boys'  and  he  cordially  invites  all  proslavery 
men  to  try  their  hands  at  arresting  him." 105 

From  Holton,  Brown's  day's  journey  carried  him  to 
Sabetha,  at  the  head  of  Pony  Creek,  six  miles  from  the 
Nebraska  line,  where  he  again  found  helpful  and  earnest 
friends.  The  men  were  divided  among  three  houses  in  the 
neighborhood  for  the  night.  The  next  day,  February  I,  was 
his  last  in  Kansas.  Mr.  Graham,  of  Sabetha,  writes: 

"The  morning  Brown  left  Kansas  he  wanted  me  to  go  along  and 
help  them  over  the  Nemaha  river,  and  I  did.  When  we  came  to  the 
river  it  was  so  high  we  could  not  ford  it,  and  the  weather  was  very 
cold.  We  hoped  it  would  freeze  that  night  so  that  the  ice  would 
bear;  and  we  stayed  at  the  log-house  of  a  half-breed  Indian,  named 
Tessaun,  on  the  Sac  and  Fox  Reservation  [in  Nebraska],  He  had  a 
double  log-house,  and  gave  us  a  large  room  with  a  bed  in  it.  As  I 
had  no  blankets,  I  was  assigned  to  the  bed  with  John  Brown.  In  the 
morning  the  ice  was  strong  enough  to  bear  a  man,  but  not  a  team; 
so  they  took  the  wagons  to  pieces  and  pushed  them  across ;  then  laid 
poles  across,  with  rails  and  bushes  and  boards  on  them,  and  over 
this  bridge  they  led  the  horses.  Then  I  bade  them  good  bye,  and 
returned  to  Sabetha." 

On  the  4th,  Brown  crossed  the  Missouri  at  Nebraska  City 
and  stood  on  Iowa  soil,  eluding  another  posse  of  fifty,  just 
before  entering  Nebraska  City,  which  Gill  met  and  avoided 
by  a  stratagem.  One  day  more  and  he  was  in  the  familiar 
town  of  Tabor.106  The  exodus  from  Kansas  was  over;  the 
flight  from  the  Egyptians  had  passed  its  most  dangerous  stage. 
Five  days  after  his  arrival  there,  on  February  10,  Brown  wrote 
to  his  "Dear  Wife  and  Children  All:" 

"  I  am  once  more  in  Iowa  through  the  great  mercy  of  God.  Those 
with  me  &  other  friends  are  well.  I  hope  soon  to  be  at  a  point  where 
I  can  learn  of  your  welfare  &  perhaps  send  you  something  besides 
my  good  wishes.  I  suppose  you  get  the  common  news.  May  the 
God  of  my  fathers  be  your  God." 107 

It  was  the  same,  yet  for  John  Brown  a  changed,  Tabor 
which  he  entered  with  the  rescued  slaves,  elated  over  stand 
ing  on  free  soil.  The  news  of  his  coming  had  preceded  him, 
and  with  it  the  details  of  the  Missouri  exploit,  the  killing 
of  Cruise,  the  taking  of  oxen,  horses  and  wagons.  Strongly 
anti-slavery  as  the  town  was,  this  seemed  to  it  transgression  of 


384  JOHN  BROWN 

the  bounds.  Throughout  the  North  public  sentiment  was  then 
practically  unanimous  on  the  side  of  the  fugitive  slave.  In 
Massachusetts  the  Federal  Government  itself  was  now  power 
less  to  take  back  the  slave  who  had  fled  from  his  chains,  so 
bitter  was  the  anger  of  the  citizens  of  the  State  after  the  ren 
dition  of  Anthony  Burns  in  1854.  The  moral  sentiment  of  the 
time  perceived,  moreover,  no  wrong  in  the  slave's  taking  such 
things  as  he  needed  for  his  flight.  Were  they  not  but  a  small 
part  of  the  wage  he  had  earned  which  had  been  wickedly  with 
held  from  him?  And  would  not  flight  in  most  cases  have  been 
impossible  if  they  did  not  take  at  least  the  clothes  they  wore, 
which  belonged  not  to  them  but  to  the  master?  To  Ellen 
Craft,  who,  wearing  her  owner's  suit  and  high  hat,  imperson 
ated  a  white  man  travelling  North,  with  her  husband  as  an 
attendant  slave,  no  stigma  of  theft  attached.  Slavery  to  the 
Abolitionists  was  the  sum  of  human  wickedness,  and  nearly  all 
measures  taken  to  escape  from  it  were  justifiable.  Not,  how 
ever,  the  taking  of  human  life.  It  was  this  that  stuck  in  the 
crops  of  the  Tabor  community,  which  also  had  the  frontier 
town's  horror  of  the  horse-thief.  So  that  when  John  Brown's 
train  of  wagons  arrived,  there  was  a  curious  but  a  cold  crowd 
to  greet  him.  The  slaves  were  put  into  a  little  school-house 
which  yet  stands,  and  the  teams  unloaded  on  the  public  com 
mon  that  is  still  the  particular  attraction  of  Tabor.  For  a 
week,  at  least,  Brown  desired  to  rest  and  recuperate  for  the 
long  overland  trip  across  Iowa  to  Springdale. 

The  next  day  being  the  Sabbath,  as  the  Rev.  John  Todd, 
whose  hospitable  home  had  sheltered  many  an  armed  emi 
grant  ready  to  take  human  life  in  defence  of  Kansas,  entered 
his  church,  there  was  handed  to  him  the  following  note  in  John 
Brown's  handwriting,  which  is  still  preserved  in  the  Historical 
Department  of  Iowa  at  Des  Moines: 

"John  Brown  respectfully  requests  the  church  at  Tabor  to  offer 
public  thanksgiving  to  Almighty  God  in  behalf  of  himself,  &  com 
pany  :  6f  of  their  rescued  captives,  in  particular  for  his  gracious  pre- 
severation  of  their  lives,  &  health;  &  his  signal  deliverance  of  all  out 
of  the  hand  of  the  wicked,  hitherto.  '  Oh  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord ; 
for  he  is  good:  for  his  mercy  endure th  forever.' ' 

The  Rev.  Dr.  H.  D.  King  was  in  the  pulpit  with  Parson 
Todd,  and  to  him  the  perplexed  preacher  turned  for  advice. 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  385 

"  Brother  Todd,"  said  Mr.  King, 108 "  this  is  your  church,  but  if 
I  were  you  I  would  not  make  a  prayer  for  them.  Inasmuch  as 
it  is  said  they  have  destroyed  life  and  stolen  horses,  I  should 
want  to  take  the  charge  under  examination  before  I  made  a 
public  prayer."  So,  when  the  congregation  was  seated,  Todd 
announced:  "A  petition  is  before  us.  But  perhaps  under  the 
circumstances  it  is  better  not  to  take  public  action.  If  any 
persons  wish  to  help  privately,  it  is  their  privilege  to  do  so." 
There  was  also  announced  a  meeting  of  the  citizens  for  the 
next  day.  .<i 

When  this  was  called  to  order,  John  Brown  was  asked  to 
speak  in  his  own  behalf.  Just  as  he  began  his  story,  a  Dr. 
Brown,  of  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  a  well-known  medical  special 
ist  and  a  slaveholder,  entered  the  church.  Recognizing  him, 
John  Brown  very  quietly  said  that  "one  had  just  entered 
whom  he  preferred  not  to  have  hear  what  he  had  to  say  and 
would  therefore  respectfully  request  him  to  withdraw." 
Instantly  a  prominent  citizen  sprang  to  his  feet  and  said  he 
"hoped  nothing  would  be  heard  that  all  might  not  hear." 
John  Brown  very  quietly  remarked  that  if  that  man  remained 
he  had  nothing  more  to  say,  and  soon  afterward  silently  with 
drew  from  the  meeting.  It  was  understood  that  he  said  to  one 
of  his  men  without:  "We  had  best  look  to  our  arms.  We  are 
not  yet  among  friends."  109  George  Gill  relates  that  after 
Brown  had  declined  to  go  on,  Stevens  arose  and  in  his  superb 
bass  voice  declared  that  " '  So  help  him  God  he  never  would  sit 
in  council  with  one  who  bought  and  sold  human  flesh,'  and 
left  the  hall  as  did  the  rest  of  our  party."  110  After  a  long  dis 
cussion,  lasting  it  is  said  several  hours,  the  meeting  adopted 
the  following  resolutions,  to  John  Brown's  disgust: 

Resolved,  That  while  we  sympathize  with  the  oppressed,  &  will 
do  all  that  we  conscientiously  can  to  help  them  in  their  efforts 
for  freedom,  nevertheless,  we  have  no  Sympathy  with  those  who 
go  to  Slave  States,  to  entice  away  Slaves,  &  take  property  or  life 
when  necessary  to  attain  that  end. 

TABOR  Feb  yth  1859 
J.  SMITH 

Secretary  of  said  meating.111 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  element  of  fear  entered  into  the 
conclusion  reached. 112  There  were  those  in  Tabor  who  thought 


386  JOHN  BROWN 

that  too  great  hospitality  to  Brown  at  this  juncture  might  lead 
to  pro-slavery  attacks  upon  the  town.  Certain  it  is  that,  had 
"Jim"  Daniels  come  to  Parson  Todd,  or  almost  any  other 
inhabitant  of  Tabor,  and  asked  for  aid  for  his  family,  pro 
viding  it  were  near  by,  he  would  not  have  been  turned  away 
unaided ;  for  this  belief  the  town's  record  as  an  Underground 
Railroad  station  is  reason  enough.113 

John  Brown  finally  turned  his  back  on  Tabor  on  Febru 
ary  II,  and  began  his  journey  across  Iowa.  It  was  not  without 
danger,  for  all  the  pro-slavery  influences  in  the  State  were  at 
work  to  prevent  his  reaching  Canada,  and  many  venturesome 
persons  were  attracted  by  the  heavy  reward  for  his  head. 
Nevertheless,  Brown  took  a  well-beaten  road,  and  did  not  shun 
the  towns  as  he  had  in  the  previous  winter,  when  moving  the 
arms  overland  to  Springdale.  They  stopped  at  Toole's,  pre 
sumably  an  Underground  Railroad  station,  on  the  night  of 
the  1 2th,  at  Lewis's  Mills  on  the  next  day,  and  at  Grove  City 
on  the  1 4th.114  Dalmanutha  was  their  resting-place  on  the 
1 5th,  Aurora  on  the  next  day,  and  "Jordan's"  on  the  lyth. 
The  next  day  they  boldly  entered  Des  Moines,  stopping,  Mr. 
Gill  says,  "quite  a  while  in  the  streets,  Kagi  hunting  up  Editor 
[John]  Teesdale  of  the  Register,  an  acquaintance  of  his ;  he  also 
proved  to  be  an  old  acquaintance  of  Brown's.  Mr.  Teesdale 
paid  our  ferriage  across  the  Des  Moines  River."  It  was  to 
Mr.  Teesdale  that  Brown  wrote  in  the  next  month,  March, 
1859, 115  in  reply  to  a  request  for  his  reasons  for  entering  Mis 
souri,  that: 

"First  it  has  been  my  deliberate  judgment  since  1855  that  the 
most  ready  and  effectual  way  to  retrieve  Kansas  would  be  to  med 
dle  directly  with  the  peculiar  institution.  Next,  we  had  no  means  of 
moving  the  rescued  captives  without  taking  a  portion  of  their  law 
fully  acquired  earnings.  All  we  took  has  been  held  sacred  to  that 
object  and  will  be.'M 

After  the  parting  from  Mr.  Teesdale,  the  night  was  spent  at 
a  Mr.  Hawley's;  on  the  next  day,  the  iQth,  the  stop  was  at 
Dickerson's,  and  on  the  25th,  the  caravan  was  enthusiasti 
cally  welcomed  at  Grinnell,  the  home  of  Josiah  Busnell  Grin- 
nell,  the  most  prominent  Abolitionist  in  the  State,  whose  life 
record,  it  has  been  said,  would  be  a  history  of  Iowa.  To  his 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  387 

house  Brown  went  on  arrival,  and  no  welcome  could  have  been 
more  cordial.  Mr.  Grinnell  himself  has  left  a  record  of  it,117 
and  Brown  was  so  touched  by  it  as  to  be  moved  to  send  the 
following  summary  of  it  to  the  backsliders  in  Tabor  as  coals 
of  fire  for  their  unworthy  heads: 

RECEPTION  OF  BROWN  &  PARTY  AT  GRINNELL,  IOWA 

1st.  Whole  party  &  teams  kept  for  Two  days  free  of  cost. 

2<J    Sundry  articles  of  clothing  given  to  captives. 

3*1    Bread,  Meat,  Cakes,  Pies,  etc.  prepared  for  our  journey. 

4th  Full  houses  for  Two  Nights  in  succession  at  which  meetings 
Brown  and  Kagi  spoke  and  were  loudly  cheered ;  &  fully  indorsed. 
Three  Congregational  Clergymen  attended  the  meeting  on  Sabbath 
evening  (notice  of  which  was  given  out  from  the  Pulpit).  All  of  them 
took  part  in  justifying  our  course  &  in  urging  contributions  in  our 
behalf  &  there  was  no  dissenting  speaker  present  at  either  meeting. 
Mr.  Grinnell  spoke  at  length  &  has  since  laboured  to  procure  us  a 
free  and  safe  conveyance  to  Chicago :  &  effected  it. 

5th  Contributions  in  cash  amounting  to  $26.50  Twenty  Six  Dol 
lars  &  Fifty  cents. 

6th  Last  but  not  least  Public  thanksgiving  to  Allmighty  God 
offered  up  by  Mr.  Grinnell  in  the  behalf  of  the  whole  company  for 
His  great  mercy ;  &  protecting  care,  with  prayers  for  a  continuance 
of  those  blessings. 

As  the  action  of  Tabor  friends  has  been  published  in  the  news 
papers  by  some  of  her  people  (as  I  suppose),  would  not  friend 
Gaston  or  some  other  friend  give  publicity  to  all  the  above. 
Respectfully  your  friend 

JOHN  BROWN 

SPRINGDALE,  IOWA  26th  Feby  1859 
P.  S. 

our  reception  among  the  Quaker  friends  here  has  been  most 
cordial. 

Yours  truly, 

J.  B.118 

From  Grinnell  on,  the  party,  moving  slowly,  reached  Iowa 
City  on  the  morning  of  the  25th,  and  the  familiar  Springdale 
on  the  same  afternoon.  Here  the  slaves  and  Brown  remained 
until  March  10,  when  they  departed  from  West  Liberty  for 
Chicago,  because  of  persistent  rumors  that  the  pro-slavery 
element  in  Iowa  City,  headed  by  Samuel  Workman,  the  Bu 
chanan  postmaster,  would  endeavor  to  recapture  the  slaves. 
Indeed,  an  effort  was  made  to  arrest  Brown  and  Kagi  when 


388  JOHN  BROWN 

they  spent  a  night  in  Iowa  City,  after  reaching  Springdale.119 
While  Brown  and  Kagi  were  in  the  back  of  a  restaurant, 
two  men  appeared  at  the  front  door  and  demanded  the 
"damned  nigger- thief  of  Kansas,"  whom  they  were  going  to 
hang  with  the  rope  in  their  hands.  The  restaurant-keeper, 
Baumer  by  name,  sent  them  away  and  notified  Brown.  There 
was  at  that  time  a  street-meeting  going  on,  and  to  it  Baumer 
went,  and  returning,  reported  that  there  was  an  excited  dis 
cussion  going  on  as  to  how  Brown  could  be  taken  without 
risking  the  captors'  skins.  Finally,  a  picked  force  was  sent 
to  Dr.  Jesse  Bowen's  stable  to  watch  it,  for  Brown's  team 
was  correctly  thought  to  be  there.  Dr.  Jesse  Bowen,  William 
Penn  Clarke,  L.  A.  Duncan  and  a  Colonel  Trowbridge,  Abo 
litionist  friends,  rallied  to  Brown's  support,  and  spirited  him 
and  Kagi  out  of  town  early  in  the  morning.  Colonel  Trow 
bridge  led  them  safely  by  unfrequented  roads, 

"to  a  Quaker's  house  not  far  from  Pedee,  and  there  left  them  to 
their  own  resources,  while  he  made  his  way  back  to  Iowa  City. 
There  was  then  a  post-office  called  Carthage,  six  miles  east  of  the 
city,  in  Scott  township,  and  a  man  named  Gruilich  was  the  post 
master.  At  this  place  there  was  a  party  of  men  shooting  at  a  target, 
drinking  liquor,  and  waiting  for  old  John  Brown  to  come  along." 

It  was  while  staying  in  Springdale,  on  this  last  visit,  that 
Brown  wrote  a  letter  to  Dr.  Bowen  at  Iowa  City,  which  is  of 
value  as  showing  clearly  that  he  still  felt  himself  morally  and 
legally  entitled  to  some  of  the  arms  remaining  in  Tabor,  under 
the  National  Committee  vote  of  January  24,  1857  (not  Jan 
uary  2  as  below) : 

SPRINGDALE,  CEDAR  Co,  IOWA,  3rd  March  1859 
DR  JESSE  BOWEN 
DEAR  SIR 

I  was  lately  at  Tabor  in  this  State  where  there  is  lying  in  the 
care  of  Jonas  Jones  Esqr.  one  brass  field  piece  fully  mounted;  & 
carriage  good.  Also  a  quantity  of  grape  and  round  shot:  together 
with  part  of  another  carriage  of  some  value.  Also  some  twenty  or 
over  U.  S.  rifles  with  flint  locks.  The  rifles  are  good  and  in  good 
order,  I  have  held  a  claim  on  these  articles  since  Jan  2  1857  that  is 
both  morally  and  legally  good  against  any  and  all  other  parties :  but 
I  informed  Mr.  Jones  that  I  would  most  cheerfully;  and  even  gladly 
waive  it  entirely  in  your  favor:  knowing  the  treatment  you  have 
received.  I  should  think  these  articles  might  be  so  disposed  of  as 


SHUBEL  MORGAN  389 

to  save  you  from  ultimate  loss:  but  I  need  not  say  to  you  how 
important  is  perfect  and  secure  possession  in  such  cases:  &  you 
are  doubtless  informed  of  the  disordered  condition  of  the  National 
Kansas  Committee  matters.  I  left  with  you  a  little  cannon  &  car 
riage.  Could  you,  or  any  one  induce  the  inhabitants  of  your  city 
to  make  me  up  something  for  it;  &  buy  it  either  to  keep  as  an  old 
relic;  or  for  the  sake  of  helping  me  a  little?  I  am  certainly  quite 
needy;  and  have  moreover  quite  a  family  to  look  after.  There  are 
those  who  would  sooner  see  me  supplied  with  a  good  halter  than 
anything  else  for  my  services.  Will  you  please  write  me  frankly  to 
John  H.  Painter  Esqr  or  by  bearer  whether  you  think  anything  can 
be  done  for  me  with  the  gun;  or  otherwise?  My  best  wishes  for 
yourself  &  family. 

Respectfully  your  friend 

JOHN  BROWN120 

Whether  through  Dr.  Bowen's  efforts  or  those  of  some  one 
else,  this  little  cannon  now  ornaments  the  library  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  Iowa,  at  Iowa  City. 

The  kindly  Quakers  of  Springdale  were  quite  relieved  when 
Brown  finally  disbanded  his  escort  and  moved  on,  for  they 
were  well  aware  that  he  and  his  men  would  fight  before  they 
would  give  up  the  slaves.    Stevens,  Gill  related,  on  hearing 
that  there  might  be  a  rescue  attempted,  said:  "Just  give  me 
a  house  and  I  '11  defend  them  against  forty."    "  A  bystander," 
continued  Mr.  Gill,  "has  since  told  me  that  he  had  often  heard 
of  the  eyes  flashing  fire,  but  that  he  never  believed  it  until 
then.   It  was  in  the  dusk  of  evening,  and  he  declared  that  he 
did  actually  see  the  sparks  flying  from  his  [Stevens's]  eyes."  121 
It  is  said  that  a  posse  did  leave  Iowa  City  for  Springdale, 
but  thought  better  of  it  on  hearing  that  Brown  was  in  readi 
ness  for  them ;  on  at  least  one  occasion  the  young  Quakers  of 
the  vicinity  stood  guard  with  Brown's  men  most  of  the  night, 
to  protect  the  fugitives.122  On  March  9,  with  a  strong  guard 
of  white  men,  the  slaves  were  moved  to  Keith's  steam  mill 
at  West  Liberty,  the  nearest  railroad  station.  Here  they  were 
kept  overnight,  and  in  the  morning,  when  the  first  train  from 
Iowa  City  passed,  it  conveniently  left  a  box-car  near  the  mill. 
"Acting  no  doubt,"  says  an  eye-witness,123  "  upon  the  suppo 
sition  it  was  intended  for  use,  it  was  at  once  made  ready,  the 
colored  people  and  property  placed  within."  At  eleven  o'clock 
the  Chicago  train  came  along,  only  to  leave  with  the  innocent- 
looking  box-car  safely  between  the  engine  and  the  express  car. 


390  JOHN  BROWN 

The  use  of  the  box-car  had  finally  been  obtained  by  William 
Penn  Clarke,  by  making  the  agent  at  West  Liberty  believe 
that  the  railroad  officials  knew  and  connived.124  This  he  did 
by  showing  him  a  draft  of  fifty  dollars  for  Brown  from  John 
F.  Tracy,  the  superintendent  of  the  road,  and  a  friendly  letter 
from  Hiram  Price,  the  secretary  of  the  road,  to  a  deputy 
superintendent.  Mr.  Grinnell,  by  engaging  the  car  in  Chicago, 
aided,  and  Mr.  Tracy  refused  to  accept  payment  for  the  car 
on  the  ground  that  "we  might  be  held  for  the  value  of  every 
one  of  those  niggers."  125 

At  Chicago,  Brown,  with  Kagi  and  Stevens  *  and  his  dusky 
followers,  awakened  Allan  Pinkerton,  of  detective  fame,  at 
4.30  the  next  morning,  March  II.  Pinkerton  at  once  distrib 
uted  them  and  got  them  under  cover,  sending  John  Brown 
to  his  friend  John  Jones,  a  negro,  and  taking  others  into 
his  own  house.  He  got  some  breakfast,  and  then  hurried  to 
Jones's  to  see  Brown,  who  explained  that  he  was  on  the  way 
to  Canada.  After  some  talk  they  decided  to  wait  until  after  a 
lawyers'  meeting  that  day,  at  which  Pinkerton  hoped  to  get 
some  money.  He  actually  did  raise  between  five  and  six  hun 
dred  dollars,  and  obtained  a  car  from  Colonel  C.  G.  Ham 
mond,  the  General  Superintendent  of  the  Michigan  Central 
Railway,  who  personally  saw  to  it  that  the  car  was  stocked 
with  provisions  and  water.126  At  4.45  that  same  afternoon, 
the  party  left  Chicago  for  Detroit  in  charge  of  Kagi,  arriving 
at  ten  o'clock  on  March  12,  Brown  going  by  an  earlier  train 
to  make  sure  of  meeting  Frederick  Douglass,  then  in  Detroit. 
He  was  on  hand  to  have  the  happiness  of  seeing  his  black 
charges  on  the  ferry-boat  for  Windsor,  where  they  were  soon 
rejoicing  in  their  freedom  under  the  Union  Jack.  One  of  the 
slave  women  had  had  six  masters,  and  four  of  the  party  had 
served  sixteen  owners  in  all.127  Henceforth  they  were  to  be 
in  control  of  their  own  persons  and  profit  by  their  own  labor. 
As  for  their  benefactor,  John  Brown,  he  had  brought  them 
safely  eleven  hundred  miles  in  eighty-two  days  from  the  date 
of  their  liberation,  six  hundred  miles  of  which  had  been  cov 
ered  in  wagons  in  the  dead  of  winter.  The  hegira  was  at  an 
end. 

*  Gill  had  parted  at  Springdale  from  Brown  finally,  because  of  inflammatory 
rheumatism. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY 

THERE  was  no  period  of  rest  and  jubilation  for  John  Brown, 
however  it  might  be  with  the  rescued  slaves  in  their  new 
Canadian  surroundings.  He  and  Kagi  arrived  in  Cleveland 
on  March  15,  from  Detroit,  and  spent  about  a  week  with  Mrs. 
Charles  M.  Sturtevant,  a  sister  of  Charles  W.  Moffet,  before 
going  on  to  Ashtabula  County  to  visit  his  sons  there  domi 
ciled.1  While  in  Cleveland,  Brown  sought  to  raise  money  by 
two  methods,  lecturing  and  the  sale  of  two  of  his  captured 
horses  and  a  "liberated"  mule.  The  Cleveland  Leader  of 
March  18,  1859,  announced  the  lecture  in  this  manner: 

"'Old  Brown'  of  Kansas,  the  terror  of  all  Border  Ruffiandom, 
with  a  number  of  his  men,  will  be  in  Cleveland  tonight,  when  *he, 
and  J.  H.  Kagi,  Kansas  correspondent  of  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  will 
give  a  true  account  of  the  recent  troubles  in  Kansas,  and  of  the  late 
'Invasion  of  Missouri,'  and  what  it  was  done  for,  together  with 
other  highly  interesting  matters  that  have  never  yet  appeared  in 
the  papers.  The  meeting  will  be  held  in  Chapin's  Hall  7^  o'clock. 
These  men  have  fought  and  suffered  bravely  for  Free  Kansas,  and 
with  good  effect.  Go  and  hear  them  and  you  will  not  grudge  your 
quarter,  necessary  to  defray  the  expenses  to  which  they  have  been 
subjected  by  the  persecutions  of  their  enemies,  aided  and  abetted 
by  the  faithless  Democratic  administration." 

On  account  of  a  violent  storm,  few  people  attended  the 
lecture,  which  was  therefore  postponed.  The  Leader  next  an 
nounced  it  for  March  21,  promising  an  evening  of  "thrilling 
interest."2  But  even  this  announcement  failed  to  attract;  it 
was  a  "slim  attendance"  which  the  newspapers  recorded  the 
next  day.  The  reporters  were  there,  however,  and  to  them  we 
owe  full  accounts  of  the  meeting.  One  of  these,  that  of  the 
Plain  Dealer,*  is  very  "journalistic,"  as  may  be  judged  from 
the  following  description  of  Brown  from  the  pen  of  "  Artemus 
Ward,"  then  the  Plain  Dealer's  city  editor: 

"He  is  a  medium-sized,  compactly-built  and  wiry  man,  and  as 
quick  as  a  cat  in  his  movements.  His  hair  is  of  a  salt  and  pepper  hue 


392  JOHN  BROWN 

and  as  stiff  as  bristles,  he  has  a  long,  waving,  milk-white  goatee, 
which  gives  him  a  somewhat  patriarchal  appearance,  his  eyes  are 
gray  and  sharp.  A  man  of  pluck  is  Brown.  You  may  bet  on  that. 
He  shows  it  in  his  walk,  talk,  and  actions.  He  must  be  rising  sixty, 
and  yet  we  believe  he  could  lick  a  yard  full  of  wild  cats  before  break 
fast  and  without  taking  off  his  coat.  Turn  him  into  a  ring  with  nine 
Border  Ruffians,  four  bears,  six  Injuns  and  a  brace  of  bull  pups,  and 
we  opine  that '  the  eagles  of  victory  would  perch  on  his  banner.'  We 
don't  mean  by  this  that  he  looks  like  a  professional  bruiser,  who  hits 
from  the  shoulder,  but  he  looks  like  a  man  of  iron  and  one  that  few 
men  would  like  to  'sail  into."1 

To  "Artemus  Ward,"  Kagi  appeared  but  a  "melancholy 
brigand;"  some  of  his  statements  were  to  "Ward"  "no  doubt 
false  and  some  shamefully  true.  It  was  'Bleeding  Kansas' 
once  more." 

On  Brown's  statements  the  friendly  and  unfriendly  re 
porters  agreed  pretty  well.  The  Plain  Dealer's  representative 
thus  summarized  the  salient  points  of  the  address: 

"He  [Brown]  had  never,  during  his  connection  with  Kansas  mat 
ters,  killed  anybody.  He  had  never  destroyed  or  injured  the  pro 
perty  of  any  individual  unless  he  knew  him  to  be  a  violent  enemy  of 
the  free-state  men.  All  newspaper  statements  to  the  contrary  were 
false.  The  Border  Ruffians  had  created  the  war  and  he  had  looked 
upon  it  as  right  that  they  should  defray  the  expenses  of  the  war. 
He  had  told  the  young  men  that  some  things  might  be  done  as  well 
as  others,  and  they  had  done  'em.  He  had  regarded  the  enemy's 
arms,  horses,  etc.,  as  legitimate  booty.  He  had  never  seen  but  one 
pro-slavery  house  on  fire,  but  had  seen  free  state  villages  on  fire  and 
in  ashes.  He  had  seen  the  ashes  of  his  own  children's  homes,  and  one 
of  his  sons  had  been  murdered  —  shot  down  like  a  dog  —  by  Border 
Ruffians,  the  only  provocation  being  that  said  son  was  a  free  state 


As  to  the  raid  into  Missouri,  this  is  the  impression  Brown's 
narration  of  it  made  upon  the  humorist,  who  was  obviously 
sent  to  ridicule  or  run  down  the  whole  proceeding: 

"  Brown's  description  of  his  trip  to  Westport  and  capture  of  eleven 
niggers  was  refreshingly  cool,  and  it  struck  us,  while  he  was  giving 
it,  that  he  would  make  his  jolly  fortune  by  letting  himself  out  as 
an  Ice  Cream  Freezer.  He  meant  this  invasion  as  a  direct  blow 
at  slavery.  He  did  n't  disguise  it  —  he  wanted  the  audience  to  dis 
tinctly  understand  it.  With  a  few  picked  men  he  visited  Westport 
in  the  night  and  liberated  eleven  slaves.  He  also  '  liberated '  a  large 
number  of  horses,  oxen,  mules  and  furniture  at  the  same  time.  .  .  . 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  393 

A  man  lately  from  the  Missouri  Border  was  present  and  stated  that 
there  was  'a  great  antipathy  against  him  (Brown)  down  there,'  and 
the  old  gentleman  cheerfully  said  he  thought  it  'highly  probable.' 
On  being  asked  if  he  should  return  to  Kansas,  he  said  it  'depended 
on  circumstances.'  He  had  never  driven  men  out  of  the  Territory. 
He  did  not  believe  in  that  kind  of  warfare.  He  believed  in  settling 
the  matter  on  the  spot,  and  using  the  enemy  as  he  would  fence  stakes 
—  drive  them  into  the  ground  where  they  would  become  permanent 
settlers.  A  resolution  approving  of  Brown's  course  in  Kansas  was 
introduced  and  adopted  by  the  audience.  He  thanked  the  audience 
very  sincerely,  although  he  was  perfectly  sure  his  course  was  right 
before." 

Brown's  statement  in  regard  to  the  "fence  stakes"  was  thus 
reported  in  the  more  sober  account  of  the  Leader  of  March  22. 
He  "had  never  by  his  own  action  driven  out  pro-slavery  men 
from  the  territory,  but  if  occasion  demanded  it  he  would  drive 
them  into  the  ground  like  a  fence-stake  where  they  would 
remain  permanent  settlers."  Of  great  significance  in  connec 
tion  with  Pottawatomie  is  the  friendly  Leader's  record  of  his 
saying  that  "he  had  never  killed  anybody,  although  on  some 
occasions  he  had  shown  his  young  men  with  him,  how  some 
things  might  be  done  as  well  as  others,  and  they  had  done  the 
business."  Financially,  the  lecture  was  a  great  failure:  only 
about  fifty  persons  were  present  to  pay  a  quarter  apiece  for 
admission ; 4  and  the  hall  had  to  be  paid  for,  as  well  as  the 
advertising.  As  for  the  horses,  Brown  described  one  of  them 
as  a  "beautiful  racker,  of  very  decided  wind,"  while  the  other 
horse  had  "many  excellent  points;"  but  like  the  mule,  both 
were  somewhat  thin.  "They  brought  an  excellent  price," 
Brown  afterwards  said.5  Probably  these  animals  were  shipped 
from  Springdale  to  Cleveland.  Brown,  in  selling  them,  freely 
announced  that  they  were  of  Missouri  origin,  and  that  he 
could  give  no  sound  title  thereto.8  "They  are  Abolition 
horses,"  he  told  the  purchaser,  and  when  asked  how  he  knew, 
hiLresponded, "  I  converted  them."  This  action,  like  his  adver 
tising  and  holding  nis  lectures',  well  illustrated  his  contempt 
for  the  United  States  authorities.  For,  as  they  walked  the 
streets  of  Cleveland,  Brown  and  Kagi  saw  numerous  posters 
announcing  in  large  type  the  President's  offer  of  $250,  and 
that  of  $3000  of  the  Governor  of  Missouri,  to  any  one  who 
would  arrest  and  detain  Brown  where  he  might  be  given  into 


394  JOHN  BROWN 

the  hands  of  the  Missouri  authorities.  One  of  these  posters 
was  conspicuously  placed  less  than  two  blocks  from  the  City 
Hotel  in  which  Brown  and  Kagi  stayed,  the  hotel  itself  being 
but  four  blocks  from  the  office  of  the  United  States  marshal 
who  had  put  up  the  posters.7  The  explanation  of  Brown's 
immunity  is  probably  that  public  sentiment  in  Cleveland  was 
too  strongly  against  the  South  to  encourage  the  marshal  to 
claim  the  $3250  reward. 

On  March  25,  Brown  was  able  to  send  from  Ash  tabula  $150, 
part  of  the  proceeds  of  the  horse-sale,  to  his  family  at  North 
Elba,8  with  the  request  that  they  purchase  with  it  a  team  of 
young  oxen,  and  that  the  balance  be  saved  unless  they  were 
actually  in  debt.  While  at  West  Andover,  he  received  from 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  the  brave  anti-slavery  Congressman 
from  Ohio,  an  invitation  to  come  to  Jefferson  and  speak  in  the 
Congregational  church  at  that  place.  Mr.  Giddings  had  seen 
the  Cleveland  accounts  of  Brown's  lecture  and,  as  he  after 
wards  stated,9  "our  people  had  felt  a  great  desire  to  see  him, 
and  we  were  a  little  surprised  that  he  did  not  call  at  our 
village,  which  is  the  seat  of  justice  for  the  county,  as  it  was 
said  he  had  visited  a  son  who  was  living  in  that  vicinity." 
Brown  went  to  Jefferson  on  March  26,  to  arrange  for  his  lec 
ture,  and  spoke  on  the  following  day,  after  the  regular  church 
service.  "Republicans  and  Democrats,"  said  Mr.  Giddings, 
"all  listened  to  his  story  with  attention.  .  .  .  He  gave  us 
clearly  to  understand  that  he  held  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  they  were  enunciated  by  the  Saviour." 
After  Brown  finished,  Mr.  Giddings  made  an  appeal  for  con 
tributions,  and  "every  Democrat  as  well  as  Republican  present 
gave  something."  At  the  close  of  the  meeting,  Brown  went 
to  Mr.  Giddings's  house  to  take  tea,  and  had  a  long  talk  with 
the  Congressman  and  his  wife.  Neither  then,  nor  in  his  lec 
ture,  did  Brown  give  the  slightest  hint  as  to  the  Harper's 
Ferry  plan,  or  refer  to  his  associates  or  arms.  Mr.  Giddings, 
whose  purse  always  had  something  in  it  for  the  fugitive  slave, 
gave  a  modest  three  dollars  to  Brown  for  his  work,  which  sum 
was  swelled  to  three  hundred  dollars  by  reports  from  Harper's 
Ferry  after  the  raid,  in  the  effort  to  connect  Mr.  Giddings  and 
other  Republican  politicians  with  Brown's  attack.  Kagi  soon 
returned  to  Cleveland,  where  he  busied  himself  particularly 


THE   EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  395 

with  the  Oberlin -Wellington  rescuers  then  in  jail  for  taking 
an  escaped  slave  away  from  slave-catchers  armed  with  United 
States  warrants.  Kagi  also  carried  on  considerable  corre 
spondence  with  the  men  enlisted  for  the  raid.10 

To  his  family  Brown  wrote  on  April  7,  from  Kingsville, 
Ohio,  that  he  had  had  a  severe  recurrence  of  his  malarial 
trouble,  "with  a  terrible  gathering"  in  his  head  which  had 
entirely  prostrated  him  for  a  week.11  He  was,  however,  mend 
ing  and  hoped  to  be  on  his  way  home  soon.  In  conclusion  he 
added:  " My  best  wish  for  you  all  is  that  you  may  truly  love 
God;  &  his  commandments."  By  April  10  he  was  well  enough 
to  leave  for  Peterboro,  where  he  arrived  on  April  n,  with 
Jeremiah  Anderson,  after  a  brief  visit,  en  route,  to  Rochester. 
On  this  last  visit,  so  Mr.  Smith's  biographer  narrates:12 

"Brown  held  a  public  meeting,  at  which  he  told  the  story  of  his 
exploit  in  carrying  a  number  of  slaves  from  Missouri  to  Canada  and 
asked  help  to  prosecute  the  work  on  a  larger  scale.  Mr.  Smith  was 
moved  to  tears  by  the  veteran's  eloquence  —  headed  the  subscrip 
tion  paper  with  four  hundred  dollars,  and  made  an  impressive 
speech,  in  which  he  said  —  '  If  I  were  asked  to  point  out  —  I  will  say 
it  in  his  presence  —  to  point  out  the  man  in  all  this  world  I  think 
most  truly  a  Christian,  I  would  point  out  John  Brown.  I  was  once 
doubtful  in  my  own  mind  as  to  Captain  Brown's  course.  I  now 
approve  of  it  heartily,  having  given  my  mind  to  it  more  of  late' "  — 

a  very  different  attitude  from  that  assumed  by  Mr.  Smith  six 
months  later.  Encouraged  by  his  stay  there,  Brown  was  at 
Westport  on  the  i6th,13  awaiting  a  conveyance  to  take  him 
to  his  home  at  North  Elba,  which  he  reached  on  the  iQth. 
Even  the  splendid  Adirondack  air  did  not  break  up  the  recur 
ring  ague  with  which  he  was  still  paying  for  his  exposure  to 
the  Kansas  elements.  The  trouble  with  his  head  also  returned, 
so  that  he  wrote  on  April  25  to  Kagi  that  he  had  not  yet  been 
able  to  attend  to  any  business,  and  would  not  be  able  to  for 
another  week  or  longer.14  On  May  2  he  was  still  at  North 
Elba,  as  his  memorandum-book  shows,  and  four  days  later 
was  at  Troy,15  buying  provisions  and  supplies  for  his  family 
before  the  final  parting.  On  May  7  he  spent  his  last  birthday 
at  Concord  with  Mr.  Sanborn.16 

Even  before  Brown's  arrival,  Mr.  Sanborn  had  been  faith 
fully  laboring  for  him.  To  raise  more  money  for  his  venture 


396  JOHN  BROWN 

was  no  easy  task,  but  thanks  to  the  two  benefactors,  Stearns 
and  Smith,  the  two  thousand  dollars  Brown  now  needed 
before  finally  embarking  on  his  enterprise  were  in  hand  by  the 
end  of  the  month  of  May.  Indeed,  the  skies  had  cleared 
greatly  when  he  reached  Boston.  Forbes  had  subsided,  or  at 
least  had  shot  his  bolt.  He  had  revealed  Brown's  plot  to  many 
who  should  not  have  heard  of  it;  but  the  truth  itself  carried 
no  conviction,  it  seemed  so  fantastic.  Moreover,  the  ruse  of 
Brown's  returning  to  Kansas  had  worked  successfully.  His 
raid  on  Missouri  had  been  widely  advertised;  he  was  still, 
in  the  public  mind,  associated  with  Kansas.  There  was,  there 
fore,  no  reason  why  the  great  blow  should  not  be  struck,  for 
which  the  leader  was  so  eager.  It  was  only  a  question  of 
funds.  As  early  as  March  14,  Mr.  Sanborn  was  writing  to  Mr. 
Higginson  and  asking  if  admiration  of  Brown's  exploits  in 
the  raid  on  Missouri  would  not  loosen  the  strings  of  some 
Worcester  purses.17  Gerrit  Smith  then  proposed  to  raise  one 
thousand  dollars  and  Judge  Hoar  perhaps  fifty  dollars.  On 
May  30,  Mr.  Sanborn  wrote:  "  Capt.  B.  has  been  here  for  three 
weeks,  and  is  soon  to  leave  —  having  got  his  $2000  secured. 
He  is  at  the  U.  S.  Hotel;  and  you  ought  to  see  him  before  he 
goes,  for  now  he  is  to  begin."  But  Mr.  Higginson  was  unable 
to  go  to  Boston,  so  Mr.  Sanborn  reported  to  him  on  June  4: 

u  Brown  has  set  out  on  his  expedition,  having  got  some  $800  from 
all  sources  except  from  Mr.  Stearns,  and  from  him  the  balance  of 
$2000;  Mr.  Stearns  being  a  man  who  'having  put  his  hand  to  the 
plough-  turneth  not  back.'  B.  left  Boston  for  Springfield  and  New 
York  on  Wednesday  morning  at  8^  and  Mr.  Stearns  has  probably 
gone  to  N.  Y.  today  to  make  final  arrangements  for  him.  He  means 
to  be  on  the  ground  as  soon  as  he  can  —  perhaps  so  as  to  begin  by 
the  4th  July.  He  could  not  say  where  he  shall  be  for  a  few  weeks — 
but  a  letter  addressed  to  him  under  cover  to  his  son  John  Jr.  West 
Andover,  Ashtabula  Co.  Ohio,  [would  reach  him.]  This  point  is  not 
far  from  where  B.  will  begin,  and  his  son  will  communicate  with  him. 
Two  of  his  sons  will  go  with  him.  He  is  desirous  of  getting  someone 
to  go  to  Canada  and  collect  recruits  for  him  among  the  fugitives, 
with  H.  Tubman,  or  alone,  as  the  case  may  be,  &  urged  me  to  go,  — 
but  my  school  will  not  let  me.  Last  year  he  engaged  some  persons  & 
heard  of  others,  but  he  does  not  want  to  lose  time  by  going  there 
himself  now.  I  suggested  you  to  him.  .  .  .  Now  is  the  time  to  help 
in  the  movement,  if  ever,  for  within  the  next  two  months  the  experi 
ment  will  be  made." 


THEODORE    PARKER  SAMUEL   <;.    HOWE 

JOHN    BROWN'S    NORTHERN   SUPPORTERS 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  397 

Mr.  Higginson  did  not  feel  that  he  could  do  much  this 
time.  As  he  wrote  to  Brown,  he  had  drawn  so  largely  on  his 
Worcester  friends  for  similar  purposes,  that  he  found  it  hard 
to  raise  additional  sums,  particularly  as  so  many  of  Worcester's 
best  men  were  facing  business  difficulties.18  Then  Mr.  Hig 
ginson  had  not  gotten  over  his  disappointment  of  the  previous 
year.  " My  own  loss  of  confidence,"  he  wrote,  "is  also  in  the 
way  —  loss  of  confidence  not  in  you,  but  in  the  others  who 
are  concerned  in  the  measure.  Those  who  were  so  easily  dis 
heartened  last  spring,  may  be  again  deterred  now."  "It  had 
all  begun  to  seem  to  me  rather  chimerical,"  Mr.  Higginson 
subsequently  stated.19  He  heard  occasionally  from  Mr.  San- 
born  during  the  summer.  When  he  got  the  news  of  the  raid 
on  Harper's  Ferry,  it  came  as  a  surprise,  so  far  as  the  locality 
was  concerned.  "Naturally,"  he  declared,  "my  first  feeling 
was  one  of  remorse,  that  the  men  who  had  given  him  money 
and  arms  should  not  actually  have  been  by  his  side." 

The  other  conspirators  besides  Mr.  Higginson  were  still 
ignorant  of  the  precise  locality  Brown  had  chosen  for  his 
attack;  but  were  perfectly  aware  of  its  general  outlines.  Mr. 
Sanborn  positively  states  that  out  of  a  little  over  four  thousand 
dollars  which  passed  through  the  hands  of  the  secret  com 
mittee,  or  was  known  to  them  to  have  been  contributed,  "at 
least  $3800  were  given  with  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  use  to 
which  it  would  be  put."  20  During  Brown's  last  stay  in  Bos 
ton  he  met  the  members  of  the  secret  committee  frequently. 
From  his  memorandum-book  it  would  seem  that  their  first 
conference  was  on  May  10,  at  three  o'clock,  at  Dr.  Howe's 
office.  Theodore  Parker,  having  gone  to  Europe  in  a  vain  effort 
to  improve  his  failing  health,  was  not  present.  The  burden  of 
the  undertaking  rested,  therefore,  upon  Dr.  Howe,  Mr.  San- 
born  and  George  L.  Stearns.  On  May  16,  Brown  was  able  to 
write  encouragingly  to  Kagi,  to  John,  Jr.,  Owen  and  Jason. 
To  Kagi  he  said  that  he  was  "very  weak,"  but  that  "there 
is  scarce  a  doubt  but  that  all  will  set  right  in  a  few  days  more, 
so  that  I  can  be  on  my  way  back."  21  Indeed,  his  corre 
spondence  at  this  time  was  very  voluminous,  although  little 
of  it  has  survived.  To  his  small  daughter  Ellen,  in  North 
Elba,  then  not  five  years  old,  he  sent  on  May  13,  from 
Boston,  the  following  note: 22 


r 


398  JOHN  BROWN 

MY  DEAR  DAUGHTER  ELLEN, 

I  will  send  you  a  short  letter. 

I  want  very  much  to  have  you  grow  good  every  day.  To  have 
you  learn  to  mind  your  mother  very  quick ;  &  sit  very  still  at  the 
table ;  &  to  mind  what  all  older  persons  say  to  you  that  is  right.  I 
hope  to  see  you  soon  again ;  &  if  I  should  bring  some  little  thing 
that  will  please  you;  it  would  not  be  very  strange.  I  want  you  to 
be  uncommon  good  natured.  God  bless  you  my  child. 

Your  Affectionate  Father 

JOHN  BROWN. 

In  the  letter  to  his  wife  of  the  same  date,  in  which  this  note 
was  enclosed,  Brown  wrote: 23  "I  feel  now  very  confident  of 
ultimate  success;  but  have  to  be  patient.  .  .  ."  To  Augustus 
Wattles,  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Adair,  Congressman  Giddings,  Fred 
erick  Douglass,  and  others,  went  missives  at  this  period.24 

Despite  his  recurrent  ague,  he  was  able  to  make  some  new 
friends  and  to  meet  the  old.  At  Concord,  the  day  after  his 
arrival  at  Sanborn's,  he  addressed  another  meeting  in  the 
Town  Hall,  where  Bronson  Alcott  heard  him  for  the  first  and 
only  time.  Mr.  Alcott  recorded  later:25 

"Our  people  heard  him  with  favor.  He  impressed  me  as  a  person 
of  surpassing  sense,  courage,  and  religious  earnestness.  A  man  of 
reserves,  yet  he  inspired  confidence  in  his  integrity  and  good  judg 
ment.  He  seemed  superior  to  any  legal  traditions,  able  to  do  his  own 
thinking;  was  an  idealist,  at  least  in  matters  of  State,  if  not  on  all 
points  of  his  religious  faith.  He  did  not  conceal  his  hatred  of  Slavery, 
and  less  his  readiness  to  strike  a  blow  for  freedom  at  the  fitting 
moment.  I  thought  him  equal  to  anything  he  should  dare:  the  man 
to  do  the  deed  necessary  to  be  done  with  the  patriot's  zeal,  the 
martyr's  temper  and  purpose.  ...  I  am  accustomed  to  divine 
men's  tempers  by  their  voices;  —  his  was  vaulting  and  metallic, 
suggesting  repressed  force  and  indomitable  will.  .  .  .  Not  far  from 
sixty,  then,  he  seemed  alert  and  agile,  resolute  and  ready  for  any 
crisis.  I  thought  him  the  manliest  of  men  and  the  type  and  synonym 
of  the  just." 

An  acquaintance  made  in  this  month  of  May  was  that  of 
John  M.  Forbes,  a  public-spirited  and  broad-minded  business 
man  of  Boston.  Mr.  Forbes  noted  that  there  was  a  "little 
touch  of  insanity"  about  Brown's  "glittering  gray-blue  eyes;" 
"he  repelled,  almost  with  scorn,  my  suggestion  that  firmness 
at  the  ballot-box  by  the  North  and  West  might  avert  the 
storm;  and  said  that  it  had  passed  the  stage  of  ballots,  and 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  399 

nothing  but  bayonets  and  bullets  could  settle  it  now." *'  Mr. 
Forbes  had  invited  several  friends  in  to  hear  the  talk,  besides 
Mr.  Sanborn,  who  came  with  Brown,  and,  when  the  hour  for 
retiring  came,  bade  Brown  good-by,  as  the  latter  was  to  take 
the  earliest  train  for  Boston  in  the  morning.  Mr.  Forbes 
relates  an  interesting  incident  which  closed  Brown's  stay  in 
his  home: 

"When  our  parlor  girl  got  up  early,  to  open  the  house,  she  was 
startled  by  rinding  the  grim  old  soldier  sitting  bolt  upright  in  the 
front  entry,  fast  asleep;  and  when  her  light  awoke  him,  he  sprang  up 
and  put  his  hand  into  his  breast  pocket,  where  I  have  no  doubt  his 
habit  of  danger  led  him  to  carry  a  revolver.  .  .  .  By  an  odd  chance, 
the  very  next  day  Governor  Stewart,  the  pro-slavery  Governor  of 
Missouri  (who  had  set  the  price  of  $3000  on  John  Brown's  head), 
appeared  on  railroad  business,  and  he  too  passed  the  night  at  Mil 
ton,  little  dreaming  who  had  preceded  him  in  my  guest  room." 

Another  distinguished  man  whom  John  Brown  met  was 
Senator  Henry  Wilson.  They  were  introduced  at  a  dinner  of 
the  Bird  Club,  at  which  Stearns  and  Howe  were  also  present, 
but  there  seems  to  have  been  a  marked  lack  of  cordiality  in  the 
greeting.  At  least,  Senator  Wilson  gave  the  following  account 
of  it  to  the  Mason  Committee: 27 

"  I  was  introduced  to  him  and  he,  I  think,  did  not  recollect  my 
name,  and  I  stepped  aside.  In  a  moment,  after  speaking  to  some 
body  else,  he  came  up  again  and,  I  think,  he  said  to  me  that  he  did 
not  understand  my  name  when  it  was  mentioned,  and  he  then  said, 
in  a  very  calm  but  firm  tone,  to  me:  'I  understand  you  do  not  ap 
prove  of  my  course;'  referring,  as  I  supposed,  to  his  going  into  Mis 
souri  and  getting  slaves  and  running  them  off.  It  was  said  with  a 
great  deal  of  firmness  of  manner,  and  it  was  the  first  salutation  after 
speaking  to  me.  I  said  I  did  not.  He  said,  in  substance,  I  under 
stand  from  some  of  my  friends  here  you  have  spoken  in  condem 
nation  of  it.  I  said,  I  had;  I  believed  it  to  be  a  very  great  injury  to 
the  anti-slavery  cause;  that  I  regarded  every  illegal  act,  and  every 
imprudent  act,  as  being  against  it.  I  said  that  if  this  action  had  been 
a  year  or  two  before,  it  might  have  been  followed  by  the  invasion  of 
Kansas  by  a  large  number  of  excited  people  on  the  border,  and  a 
great  many  lives  might  have  been  lost.  He  said  he  thought  differ 
ently,  and  he  believed  he  had  acted  right,  and  that  it  would  have  a 
good  influence,  or  words  to  that  effect." 

It  was  on  the  same  day  of  his  conversation  with  Senator 
Wilson  that  he  visited  his  benefactor,  A.  A.  Lawrence,  who, 


400  JOHN  BROWN 

as  his  diary  shows,28  had  cooled  off  considerably  in  his  admi 
ration  for  "  the  Miles  Standish  of  Kansas."  This  is  the  entry 
relating  to  the  call: 

"  Captain  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie  came  to  see  me  with  one  of 
his  rangers  [Jeremiah  Anderson].  He  has  been  stealing  negroes  and 
running  them  off  from  Missouri.  He  has  a  monomania  on  that  sub 
ject,  I  think,  and  would  be  hanged  if  he  were  taken  in  a  slave  State. 
He  has  allowed  his  beard  to  grow  since  I  saw  him  last,  which  changes 
his  appearance  entirely,  as  it  is  almost  white  and  very  long.  He  and 
his  companion  both  have  the  fever  and  ague,  somewhat,  probably 
a  righteous  visitation  for  their  fanaticism." 

While  calling  at  a  friend's  house  during  this  stay  in  Boston, 
on  a  Sunday  evening,  John  Brown  also  met  John  A.  Andrew, 
then  a  prominent  lawyer  of  Boston  and  soon  to  be  the  able  War 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Andrew  was  so  impressed 
with  Brown,  whom  he  described  as  a  "very  magnetic  person," 
that  he  sent  him  twenty-five  dollars.29  "  I  did  it,"  he  testified 
the  next  year,  "because  I  felt  ashamed,  after  I  had  seen  the 
old  man  and  talked  with  him  .  .  .  that  I  had  never  contrib 
uted  anything  directly  towards  his  assistance,  as  one  whom 
I  thought  had  sacrificed  and  suffered  so  much  for  the  cause 
of  freedom."  This  chance  meeting  stood  Brown  in  good  stead 
later,  when  it  came  to  providing  the  Virginia  State  prisoner 
with  counsel.  His  last  public  appearance,  as  a  speaker,  in  the 
North,  was  at  a  meeting  of  the  Church  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
at  Tremont  Temple,  in  the  last  week  in  May.  He  sat  on  the 
stage,  and  was  called  upon  to  speak,  but  the  large  audience 
manifesting  an  eagerness  to  hear  rather  the  orator  of  the  day, 
Dr.  Cheever,  Brown  broke  off  abruptly  after  saying  a  sen 
tence  or  two,  remarking,  as  he  sat  down,  that  he  was  more 
accustomed  to  action  than  to  speaking.30 

On  June  3,  1859,  this  pleasant  interlude  in  Brown's  life 
drew  to  its  close.  Thereafter  every  energy  was  bent  upon 
"troubling  Israel "  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  there  was  much  to  be 
endured,  in  the  sense  of  hardships  and  anxiety,  during  the 
period  of  preparation  of  four  months  now  before  him.  From 
Boston  he  went  to  Collinsville,  to  put  through  the  purchase 
of  the  pikes.  He  appeared  at  Mr.  Blair's  door  as  soon  as  he 
could  get  there  from  the  train  and  said  to  him:  "  I  have  been 
unable,  sir,  to  fulfill  my  contract  with  you  up  to  this  time; 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  401 

I  have  met  with  various  disappointments;  now  I  am  able 
to  do  so."  31  Blair  was  disinclined  to  go  on  with  the  job. 
"What  good,"  he  asked,  "can  they  be  if  they  are  finished; 
Kansas  matters  are  all  settled,  and  of  what  earthly  use  can 
they  be  to  you  now?"  Brown  answered  that  if  they  were 
finished  up,  he  could  dispose  of  them  in  some  way,  but  as  they 
were,  they  were  good  for  nothing.  Finally,  Blair  agreed  for 
four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  to  finish  the  weapons,  if  he 
could  find  a  skilled  man  to  do  the  work,  as  he  was  now  himself 
too  busy  with  other  orders.  Brown  came  again  early  on  June 
4,  and  gave  him  a  check  for  one  hundred  dollars,  and  fifty 
dollars  in  cash.  Three  days  later,  writing  from  Troy,  Brown 
sent  three  hundred  dollars  more  to  Mr.  Blair,  who  found  the 
workman  he  needed,  with  the  result  that  the  pikes  were  in 
Brown's  hands  in  Chambersburg  early  in  the  following  Sep 
tember,  their  receipt  being  acknowledged  to  Blair  in  a  letter 
dated  September  15. 

From  Troy,  Brown  went  to  Keene,  New  York,  after  making 
some  purchases  for  his  family,  where  he  wrote  to  Kagi  on 
June  9  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Ohio,  after  being  "midling 
successful."  32  The  next  day  he  was  at  Westport,33  on  his  way 
in  to  North  Elba,  where  he  remained  less  than  a  week.  He 
brought  in  with  him  many  things  for  his  family  which  he  had 
purchased  on  going  to  Massachusetts  and  on  his  way  back; 
and  in  the  brief  interval  of  this,  his  final  stay  in  his  mountain 
home,  he  did  everything  possible  for  the  comfort  of  his  family. 
There  is  no  record  of  their  parting,  a  last  earthly  one  for  sev 
eral.  Nor  is  it  probable  that  there  was  much  emotion  dis 
played  ;  the  Browns  were  neither  emotional  nor  demonstrative, 
and  their  iron-willed  and  stern  father  had  before  this  returned 
from  venturesome  undertakings  in  which  his  life  was  at  stake. 
More  than  that,  they  were,  as  a  family,  ready  for  the  sacrifice 
for  which  they  had  been  trained  and  prepared  these  many 
years.  It  was  probably  on  Thursday,  June  16,  that  the  parting 
occurred,  for  two  days  later,  June  18,  Brown's  diary  shows 
that  he  was  at  West  Andover,  Ohio.34  "  Borrowed  John's  old 
compass,  and  left  my  own,  together  with  Gurley's  book,  with 
him  at  West  Andover;  also  borrowed  his  small  Jacob  staff; 
also  gave  him  for  expenses  $15,  write  him,  under  cover  to 
Horace  Lindsley,  West  Andover."  On  the  23d  of  June  he 


402  JOHN  BROWN 

sent  to  his  family,  from  Akron,  his  first  report  since  leaving 
them.35  Hudson  and  Cherry  Valley  were  other  places  visited 
by  Brown  in  Ohio,  and  in  nearly  every  one  he  seems  to  have 
discussed  with  one  or  more  friends  the  active  service  he  now 
contemplated  —  usually  in  general  terms.  He  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  say  that  he  had  arms  and  men,  and  was  contemplating 
an  attack  upon  Virginia ;  but  those  who  remember  those  con 
versations  are  certain  that  there  was  no  mention  of  Harper's 
Ferry,  or  of  an  attack  upon  United  States  property.36 

He  had,  of  course,  long  talks  with  his  sons,  Owen  and  John, 
Jr.  The  latter  was  engaged  in  drumming-up  men  and  calling 
together  the  faithful  of  the  previous  year's  band.  This  process 
went  on  during  the  summer.  A  surprisingly  large  number  of 
persons  knew  or  suspected  what  was  going  on,  yet  no  inkling 
of  it  leaked  out  from  this  staunch  anti-slavery  neighborhood. 
From  Ohio  Brown  went  into  Pennsylvania.  He  reached  Pitts- 
burg  the  same  day  he  wrote  to  his  family  from  Akron,  for 
there  is  a  letter  to  Kagi  in  his  handwriting  dated  in  Pittsburg 
on  that  date,  and  signed  "S.  Monroe."  37  He  was  at  Bedford 
Springs  with  his  son  Oliver,  who  had  accompanied  him  from 
North  Elba,  on  June  26,  and  at  Bedford  on  June  27,  going 
thence  to  Chambersburg  for  a  two  or  three  days '  stay  there 
in  the  role  of  "I.  Smith  &  Sons,"  Owen  being  the  other  son 
with  him.38  On  the  3Oth  he  left  for  the  future  seat  of  war, 
with  both  sons  and  the  ever-faithful  Jeremiah  Anderson,  who 
in  his  rustic  garb  had  attracted  much  attention  when  walking 
the  streets  of  Boston  with  his  equally  rustic  leader.  To  Kagi, 
Brown  thus  announced  his  departure : 39  j 

CHAMBERSBURG,  PA,  30th  June,  1859. 
JOHN  HENRIE  ESQR 
DEAR  SIR 

We  leave  here  to  day  for  Harpers  Ferry;  (via)  Hagerstown. 
When  you  get  there  you  had  best  look  on  the  Hotel  register  for 
I.  Smith  &  Sons  without  making  much  enquiry.  We  shall  be  look 
ing  for  cheap  lands  near  the  Rail  Road  in  all  probability.  You  can 
write  I  Smith  &  Sons  at  Harpers  Ferry  should  you  need  to  do  so. 

Yours  in  truth 

I  SMITH 

At  Hagerstown  the  four  men  spent  the  night  at  the  Hagers 
town  tavern,40  not  dreaming  that  a  little  more  than  three 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  403 

years  later  this  small  hotel  would  be  filled  with  the  North 
ern  men  wounded  at  Antietam  in  that  war  against  slavery 
which  the  "old  man"  was  so  resolutely  predicting.  From 
Hagerstown  their  route  led  them  to  Harper's  Ferry,  per 
haps  partly  on  foot,  for  it  was  apparently  not  until  July  3 
that  they  reached  their  destination  by  train  and  were  able  to 
obtain  cheap  board  at  Sandy  Hook,  a  small  village  one  mile 
beyond  Harper's  Ferry  on  the  Maryland  side.41  Then  the 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  established  under  the  Pro 
visional  Government  was  on  his  battlefield;  the  contest  be 
tween  one  dauntless  spirit  and  the  institution  of  slavery  which 
had  so  long  dominated  American  social  and  political  life  was 
on  in  earnest. 

The  1859  anniversary  of  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States,  John  Brown  and  his  three  companions  spent  recon 
noitring  in  Maryland.  It  was  about  two-thirds  of  a  mile 
beyond  Harper's  Ferry  that  John  C.  Unseld,42  a  resident  in 
that  neighborhood,  met  them  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning  and  asked  them  if  they  were  prospecting  for 
gold  and  silver.  "  No,"  replied  Brown,  "we  are  not,  we  are  out 
looking  for  land ;  we  want  to  buy  land ;  we  have  a  little  money, 
but  we  want  to  make  it  go  as  far  as  we  can."  After  asking 
the  price  of  land  in  that  vicinity  and  expressing  surprise  at 
its  costliness,  and  other  desultory  conversation,  they  parted, 
Unseld  going  on  into  Harper's  Ferry.  On  returning  from  the 
town  he  again  met  them,  and  Brown  expressed  his  satisfaction 
with  what  he  had  seen  and  asked  whether  there  was  any  farm 
for  sale  in  the  neighborhood.  Unseld  informed  him  that  the 
heirs  of  a  Dr.  Kennedy  had  one  for  sale,  four  miles  from  where 
they  were  talking.  Brown  then  expressed  the  opinion  that  it 
would  be  better  for  him  to  rent  rather  than  to  buy,  and,  after 
declining  an  invitation  to  dinner  at  Mr.  Unseld's,  went  on 
toward  the  farm.  He  was  not  long  in  making  up  his  mind  to 
take  it,  went  to  Sharpsburg,  saw  those  in  charge  of  the  pro 
perty,  and  rented  for  only  thirty-five  dollars  the  two  houses, 
pasture  for  a  cow  and  a  horse,  and  firewood,  all  until  the  first 
day  of  March,  1860.  To  Unseld  he  stated  also  that  his  real 
business  was  buying  fat  cattle  and  driving  them  on  to  the 
State  of  New  York  for  disposal  there.  Others  in  the  neighbor 
hood  retained  the  impression  that  the  newcomers  were  really 


404  JOHN  BROWN 

mineral  prospectors,  particularly  as  Brown  sometimes  ap 
peared  with  surveying  instruments  and  carried  a  sensitive 
magnetic  needle  in  a  small  bucket.43  Naturally,  there  was  at 
first  much  curiosity  in  the  neighborhood,  but  it  gradually 
waned  until,  later  in  the  fall,  it  waxed  again. 

As  for  the  Kennedy  Farm,  it  is  about  five  miles  from  Har 
per's  Ferry.  The  main  house,  since  altered  and  enlarged,  was 
by  no  means  commodious.  There  was  a  basement  kitchen 
and  storeroom,  a  living-room  and  bedrooms  on  the  second 
story,  and  an  attic  in  which  some  of  the  men  slept.  The  house 
stands  three  hundred  yards  from  the  road,  on  the  left  as  one 
approaches  from  Harper's  Ferry,  and  was  about  six  hun 
dred  yards  from  the  simple  cabin  across  the  road,  the  second 
house  leased,  since  destroyed.  This  stood  about  three  hun 
dred  yards  from  the  road,  on  the  right-hand  side,  facing  the 
main  house.  The  place  suited  Brown  exactly,  and,  as  soon  as 
the  lease  was  signed,  he  moved  his  men  up  from  Sandy  Hook 
to  dwell  in  it.  After  the  occupation  it  became  apparent  that 
the  farm  was,  after  all,  too  near  the  highway,  and  that  the 
neighbors  were  too  inquisitive  for  comfort.  They  were  con 
stantly  "dropping  in,"  after  the  friendly  Southern  fashion, 
and  could  not  understand  why  they  were  not  asked  into 
the  house.44  Mr.  Unseld  was  once  urged  to  come  in,  but  as 
Brown  had  steadfastly  refused  to  enter  his  home,  Mr.  Unseld 
declined  to  enter  Brown's,  or  Smith's,  as  the  Northerner  was 
everywhere  known. 

Even  before  he  was  settled  on  the  farm,  Brown  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  must  have  women  with  him  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  in  order  to  avert  suspicion  while  the  arms  were  being 
moved  in  and  the  company  assembled.  He  therefore  soon 
sent  Oliver  Brown  back  to  North  Elba  with  the  following 
letter  to  his  wife,  with  the  misleading  date-line  of  Chambers- 
burg,  July  5:45 

DEAR  WIFE 

I  would  be  most  glad  to  have  you  &  Anne  come  on  with  Oliver,  & 
make  me  a  visit  of  a  few  weeks  while  I  am  prepareing  to  build.  I 
find  it  will  be  indispensable  to  have  some  women  of  our  own  family 
with  us  for  [a]  short  time.  I  dont  see  how  we  can  get  along  with 
out,  &  on  that  account  have  sent  Oliver  at  a  good  deal  of  expence  to 
come  back  with  you ;  &  if  you  cannot  come,  I  would  be  glad  to  have 


THE   CABIN    ACROSS    THE    ROAD  SCHOOL-HOUSE   GUARDED    BY 

FROM   THE    FARMHOUSE  JOHN   E.  COOK 


'HE    HOUSE    AT    KENNEDY   FARM,  MARYLAND 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  405 

Martha  &  Anne  come  on.  You  will  have  no  more  exposure  here  than 
at  North  Elba;  &  can  return  after  a  short  visit.  I  would  not  have 
you  fail  to  come  on  by  any  means.  I  do  not  think  you  need  hesitate 
to  leave  Ellen ;  with  Martha,  &  Sarah ;  &  I  think  you  would  not  find 
it  an  unpleasant  visit.  You  need  not  bring  anything  but  your  plain 
clothes,  &  a  few  Sheets,  &  Pillow-cases.  What  you  could  pack  in  a 
single  Trunk,  &  a  clean  bag;  would  be  (I  should  think)  quite  suffi 
cient.  A  few  Towels,  &  something  for  milk  strainers  might  come. 
Have  your  bag;  or  bags  marked,  /,  S;  plain.  I  want  you  to  come 
right  off.  It  will  be  likely  to  prove  the  most  valuable  service  you  can 
ever  render  to  the  world.  Do  not  consult  your  neighbors  at  all  about 
it.  Oliver  can  explain  to  you  the  reasons  why  we  want  you  now. 
Should  Oliver  be  too  unwell;  I  want  Salmon,  or  Watson  to  come  on 
with  you;  if  they  go  right  back;  at  once.  One  might  come  &  go  in 
a  little  more  than  a  Week. 

Your  Affectionat  Husband 

I.  SMITH 

Mrs.  "Smith"  was  not  ready  to  leave  her  home  and  her 
young  children,  although  she  wished  for  her  husband  "health 
and  success  in  the  great  and  good  cause  you  are  engaged  in ;  "46 
but  Martha,  Oliver's  wife,  and  Annie  promptly  responded  to 
the  call.  Both  were  very  young,  seventeen  and  sixteen  years 
old  respectively.  Oliver  accompanied  them,  and  Watson  soon 
followed.  Martha  was  cook  and  housekeeper,  all  unsuspect 
ing  of  the  tragic  end  so  soon  to  come  to  her  boy-husband 
—  he  was  not  twenty  —  and  herself,  and,  until  the  raid,  cer 
tain  that  Watson  would  shortly  rejoin  her  at  North  Elba. 
By  Saturday,  July  16,  the  two  young  girls  were  at  or  near 
the  Kennedy  Farm,  boarding  with  a  farmer  named  Nicholls 
from  their  arrival  until  they  moved  in  and  began  house 
keeping  on  the  I Qth.47  Young  as  they  were,  their  services 
were  indeed  as  valuable  as  John  Brown  had  foreseen  they 
would  be.  Mere  girls,  they  had  old  heads  upon  their  shoul 
ders.  They  filled  their  arduous  posts  well  and  bravely,  and 
fully  won  the  respect  of  the  hardy  men  as  the  long  summer 
wore  slowly  on. 

Pass  it  did  before  anything  happened,  —  much  to  the  dis 
appointment  of  some  in  the  enterprise.  To  live  in  the  open 
in  the  Virginia  mountains  in  the  fall,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
dead  of  winter,  requires  a  venturesome  man ;  the  prospect  was 
enough  to  daunt  the  toughest  campaigner  of  Kansas  plains, 
to  say  nothing  of  slaves  with  the  negro  dislike  of  the  intense 


406-  JOHN  BROWN 

cold.  There  was  every  reason,  therefore,  why  the  blow  should 
have  been  struck  in  midsummer.  But  one  thing  after  another 
delayed  it.  The  pikes  did  not  reach  the  Kennedy  Farm  until 
well  on  in  September.  The  men  dropped  in  slowly,  and  mean 
while  the  two  thousand  dollars  with  which  Brown  had  set  out 
from  Boston  melted  away  so  that  he  was  compelled  in  August 
to  appeal  once  more  for  money  —  three  hundred  dollars  - 
to  the  ever-helpful  Boston  friends.48  His  own  uneasiness  was 
manifest  on  July  10  in  the  following  letter  to  Kagi,  then  in 
Chambersburg : 49 

"I  wish  you  to  give  such  explanations  to  our  friends  as  to  our 
situation  here;  as  after  advising  with  Owen  you  will  be  able  to  do. 
We  can  of  course  do  nothing  to  purpose  till  our  freight  is  mostly 
received.  You  know  also  that  it  takes  a  great  deal  longer  to  start 
some  folks  than  it  does  others.  It  will  be  distressing  in  many  ways 
to  have  a  lot  of  hands  for  many  days  out  of  employ.  We  must  have 
time  to  get  on  our  freight ;  &  also  to  get  on  some  who  are  at  a  dis 
tance;  before  calling  on  those  who  are  ready  &  waiting.  We  must 
make  up  our  lot  of  hands  as  nearly  at  one,  &  the  same  time  ;  as  pos 
sible.  Do  not  use  much  paper  to  put  names  of  persons  &  plans 
uppon.  Send  back  word  about  the  price  of  board  with  you." 

Kagi  had  intended  to  be  at  Kennedy  Farm,  but  he  had 
hardly  stepped  off  of  the  train  at  Harper's  Ferry  before  he 
was  recognized  by  some  one  who  had  known  him  during  his 
residence  in  the  vicinity.50  Hence  it  was  decided  to  station 
him  at  Chambersburg  as  the  forwarding  agent  for  the  sup 
plies,  which  were  all  sent  there,  Owen  Brown  acting  at  first 
as  teamster  on  the  night  trips  between  the  two  places,  and  as 
pilot  for  some  of  the  recruits  as  they  joined.  By  July  12, 
Brown  instructed  Kagi  to  order  Moffet  and  Tidd  to  go  to 
Chambersburg.51  Tidd  answered  the  call,  but  Moffet  had 
already  written  on  June  20  that  he  could  not  come.52 

John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  unfortunately  trusted  with  the  for 
warding  of  the  arms,  as  he  was  not  relied  upon  for  active  ser 
vice.  In  May,  i858,63  he  had  written  that  he  had  been  "  sub 
ject  to  a  period  of  the  most  depressing  melancholy,"  and  that 
he  was  "almost  disqualified  for  anything  which  is  engrossing 
in  its  nature."  His  terrible  experience  in  Kansas  was  still 
hanging  over  him,  so  that  he  was  little  fitted  for  the  position 
of  Ohio  agent  for  the  expedition.  As  such  he  reported  on  July 


THE   EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  407 

23,  1859, 54  to  Kagi,  that  he  had  the  day  before  forwarded  to 
the  canal  at  Harts  town,  Pennsylvania,  just  across  the  Ohio 
line,  "  II  Boxes  Hardware  &  Castings  from  King  &  Brothers. 
They  are  numbered  and  marked  thus  *i  to  n-  By  R.  Rd.  Via 
Pittsburg  &  Harrisburg;  I.  Smith  &  Sons,  Chambersburg, 
Pa;  Shall  send  balance  Hardware,  &c.,  on  Monday  next  — 
*8  and  *9  are  those  which  were  on  store  with  E.  A.  F.[obes]  at 
Lindenville;  Mr.  Smith  will  remember."  On  the  following 
Wednesday,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  reported  the  despatch  of  the 
other  four  boxes  of  arms,  and  a  little  later  six  boxes  and  a  chest 
of  household  supplies  were  sent  on  their  way.55  On  August 
II,  Kagi  reported  56  the  arrival  of  the  fifteen  boxes  of  arms 
at  Chambersburg,  with  freight  charges  of  eighty-five  dollars 
attached,  so  "very  high"  in  Brown's  opinion  as  to  make  him 
write  at  once  to  his  son : 57 

"I  begin  to  be  apprehensive  of  getting  into  a  tight  spot  for  want 
of  a  little  more  funds,  notwithstanding  my  anxiety  to  make  my 
money  hold  out.  As  it  will  cost  no  more  expense  for  you  to  solicit 
for  me  a  little  more  assistance  while  attending  to  your  other  busi 
ness,  say  two  or  three  hundred  dollars  in  New  York,  —  drafts 
payable  to  the  order  of  I.  Smith  &  Sons,  —  will  you  not  sound 
my  Eastern  or  Western  friends  in  regard  to  it?  .  .  .  It  is  terribly 
humiliating  to  me  to  begin  soliciting  of  friends  again;  but  as  the 
harvest  opens  before  me  with  increasing  encouragements,  I  may  not 
allow  a  feeling  of  delicacy  to  deter  me  from  asking  the  little  further 
aid  I  expect  to  need." 

From  Chambersburg  the  arms  were  laboriously  transported 
to  the  Kennedy  Farm  by  a  young  "  Pennsylvania  Dutchman  " 
with  a  large  freight  wagon.58  For  the  ordinary  supplies  and 
the  household  belongings,  the  small  covered  wagon  purchased 
from  a  neighbor  was  the  means  of  transportation.  After  Owen 
was  compelled  to  give  up  being  teamster,  either  John  Brown 
himself,  Watson  Brown  or  Jeremiah  Anderson  made  the  trips 
to  and  from  Chambersburg.  "They  had  a  horse  and  a  mule, 
which  they  hitched  to  the  wagon  alternately,  one  riding  in  the 
wagon  and  the  other  on  horseback,  a  short  distance  either 
before  or  behind,  to  keep  a  look  out  for  danger."  People  along 
the  road  gradually  grew  suspicious  of  this  little  wagon  and 
its  mounted  escort,  and  often  stopped  them  to  ask  questions 
about  their  business.59 


408  JOHN  BROWN 

The  conspirators  were  soon  face  to  face  with  another 
danger  besides  the  inquisitiveness  of  their  neighbors,  —  their 
own  loquaciousness  and  freedom  of  expression  in  their  letters 
home.  John  E.  Cook  was  the  man  Brown  most  dreaded,  so 
far  as  looseness  of  tongue  was  concerned.  He  had  married 
on  April  18,  1859,  Mary  V.  Kennedy,  a  resident  of  Harper's 
Ferry,  and  had  secured  a  position  as  lock-tender  on  the  old 
canal  across  the  Potomac  from  the  town.60  Cook  from  the 
beginning  favored  the  plan  of  taking  the  town  and  arsenal, 
and  obtained  a  good  deal  of  information  of  value  while  his 
comrades  were  at  the  Kennedy  Farm.  He  even  wished  to 
go  about  among  the  plantation  negroes  and  give  them  vague 
hints  of  what  was  coming.  "This,"  says  Mrs.  Annie  Brown 
Adams,  now  the  sole  survivor  of  those  who  gathered  at  the 
Kennedy  Farm,  "  father  positively  forbade  his  doing.  Father 
lived  in  constant  fear  that  Cook  would  make  a  confidant  of 
someone  who  would  betray  us,  all  that  summer.  He  never 
doubted  his  bravery,  his  honesty,  or  good  intentions,  but 
considered  him  very  impulsive  and  indiscreet."  But  while 
the  others  were  in  no  danger  of  talking  too  much,  their  pens 
were  by  no  means  always  well  controlled.  William  H.  Lee- 
man,  for  instance,  wrote  to  his  mother,  two  weeks  before  the 
raid:61 

"I  am  now  in  a  Southern  Slave  Slate  and  before  I  leave  it,  it  will 
be  3.  free  State,  Mother.  .  .  .  Yes,  mother,  I  am  waring  with  Slavery 
the  greatest  Curse  that  ever  infested  America;  In  Explanation  of  my 
Absence  from  you  for  so  long  a  time  I  would  tell  you  that  for  three 
years  I  have  been  Engaged  in  a  Secret  Association  of  as  gallant 
fellows  as  ever  puled  a  trigger  with  the  sole  purpose  of  the  Exter 
mination  of  Slavery.1" 

Letters  similar  in  tenor  passed  from  the  members  of  the 
expedition  throughout  the  summer,  until  finally  John  Brown 
wrote  the  only  wrathy  letter  to  be  found  in  all  his  voluminous 
correspondence.  It  was  dated  at  the  Kennedy  Farm,  August 
n,  1859,  and  addressed  to  J.  Henrie  [Kagi]  at  Chambers- 
burg:62 

"  I  got  along  Tuesday  evening  all  right ;  with  letters  &c.  I  do  hope 
all  corresponding  except  on  business  of  the  Co :  will  be  droped  for  the 
present.  If  everyone  must  write  some  girl;  or  some  other  extra  friend 
telling,  or  shoing  our  location ;  &  telling  (as  some  have  done)  all  about 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  409 

our  matters ;  we  might  as  well  get  the  whole  published  at  once,  in 
the  New  York  Herald.  Any  person  is  a  stupid  Fool  who  expects 
his  friends  to  keep  for  him  ;  that  which  he  cannot  keep  himself.  All 
our  friends  have  each  got  their  special  friends  ;  and  they  again  have 
theirs  ;  and  it  would  not  be  right  to  lay  the  burden  of  keeping  a 
secret  on  any  one;  at  the  end  of  a  long  string.  I  coul[d]  tell  you  of 
some  reasons  I  have  for  feeling  rather  keenly  on  this  point.  I  do  not 
say  this  on  account  of  any  tale  bearing  that  I  accuse  any  of  you  of. 
Three  more  hands  came  on  from  North  E.  on  Saturday  last.  Be  sure 
to  let  me  know  of  anything  of  interest." 

A  special  reason  for  vexation  and  anxiety  Brown  had  ex 
pressed  in  a  letter  to  his  son  on  August  6.  To  the  defection 
of  Parsons  and  Moffet  was  then  added  the  news  of  that  of 
George  Gill,  Secretary  of  State  of  the  Provisional  Govern 
ment,  who  had  been  so  near  to  Brown  during  the  long  trip 
with  the  slaves.  Then,  a  man  named  Henry  Carpenter,  of 
Medina  County,  Ohio,  who  had  promised  to  join,  lost  heart 
after  starting  and  turned  back.  "  I  hope,"  wrote  the  leader,63 
"  George  G.  will  so  far  redeem  himself  as  to  try:  &  do  his  duty 
after  all.  I  shall  rejoice  over  'one  that  repenteth.'  ...  I  was 
sorry  about  the  mistake  by  which  Mr.  C.  was  parted  from 
O.  on  the  way  back.  He  has  not  come  on;  &  we  suppose  he 
found  his  way  to  you  again.  Every  thing  seems  exactly  right; 
&  will  be  so,  I  have  no  doubt;  if  our  own  imprudence  &  folly 
do  not  secure  a  failure/'  Brown's  own  circumspection  appears 
from  the  following  letter,  quite  characteristic  of  this  Kennedy 
Farm  period: 

CHAMBERSBURG,  PA,  27th  July,  1859. 
DEAR  WIFE  &  CHILDREN  ALL. 

I  write  to  say  that  we  are  all  well;  &  that  I  think  Watson,  &  D. 
had  not  best  set  out  until  we  write  again;  &  not  until  sufficient  hay 
has  been  secured  to  winter  all  the  stock  well.  To  be  buying  hay  in 
the  Spring;  or  last  of  the  winter  is  ruinous:  &  there  is  no  prospect  of 
our  getting  our  freight  on;  so  as  to  be  ready  to  go  to  work  under 
some  little  time  yet.  We  will  give  you  timely  notice.  When  you 
write  enclose  first  in  a  small  envelope  put  a  stamp  on  it ;  seal  it,  & 
direct  it  to  I.  Smith  6f  Sons  Harpers  ferry,  Va  ;  then  enclose  it  under  a 
Stamped  Envelope;  which  direct  to  John  Henrie  Chamber sburg,  Pa. 
I  need  not  say  do  all  your  directing  &  enclosing  at  home ;  &  not  at 
the  Post  Office. 

Your  Affectionate  Husband  &  Father 

I.  SMITH  M 


410  JOHN  BROWN 

But  with  at  least  eighty  persons  in  the  secret  of  the  raid, 
it  was  inevitable  that  something  should  leak  out.  A  dis 
closure  of  the  plans  actually  took  place  on  August  25,  when 
so  high  an  official  as  the  Secretary  of  War,  John  B.  Floyd, 
received  this  letter:65 

CINCINNATI,  August  20. 

SIR:  I  have  lately  received  information  of  a  movement  of  so  great 
importance  that  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  impart  it  to  you  without  delay. 

I  have  discovered  the  existence  of  a  secret  association,  having 
for  its  object  the  liberation  of  the  slaves  at  the  South  by  a  general 
insurrection.  The  leader  of  the  movement  is  "  Old  John  Brown" 
late  of  Kansas.  He  has  been  in  Canada  during  the  winter,  drilling 
the  negroes  there,  and  they  are  only  waiting  his  word  to  start  for  the 
South  to  assist  the  slaves.  They  have  one  of  their  leading  men  (a 
white  man)  in  an  armory  in  Maryland  —  where  it  is  situated  I  have 
not  been  able  to  learn.  As  soon  as  everything  is  ready,  those  of  their 
number  who  are  in  the  Northern  States  and  Canada  are  to  come  in 
small  companies  to  their  rendezvous,  which  is  in  the  mountains  in 
Virginia.  They  will  pass  down  through  Pennsylvania  and  Mary 
land,  and  enter  Virginia  at  Harper's  Ferry.  Brown  left  the  North 
about  three  or  four  weeks  ago,  and  will  arm  the  negroes  and  strike 
the  blow  in  a  few  weeks ;  so  that  whatever  is  done  must  be  done  at 
once.  They  have  a  large  quantity  of  arms  at  their  rendezvous,  and 
are  probably  distributing  them  already. 

As  I  am  not  fully  in  their  confidence,  this  is  all  the  information  I 
can  give  you.  I  dare  not  sign  my  name  to  this,  but  trust  you  will  not 
disregard  the  warnings  on  that  account. 

So  explicit  a  warning  and  so  well  written  a  letter  might,  it 
would  seem,  have  roused  the  interest  of  the  Secretary  of  War 
to  the  extent  of  a  careful  investigation.  Mr.  Floyd  was  at  the 
Red  Sweet  Springs  in  Virginia  when  he  received  the  letter. 
He  was  constantly  receiving  anonymous  communications  and 
destroying  them.  This  one  received  more  than  the  usual  con 
sideration,  in  that  he  preserved  it.  But  one  error  in  the  letter, 
the  reference  to  the  arsenal  in  Maryland,  Mr.  Floyd  after 
wards  said  to  the  Mason  Committee,  "confused  me  a  little." 
There  being  no  armory  in  Maryland,  he  jumped  to  the'  con 
clusion  that  there  was  nothing  of  truth  in  the  entire  epistle. 
"  Besides,"  he  declared,  "  I  was  satisfied  in  my  own  mind  that 
a  scheme  of  such  wickedness  and  outrage  could  not  be  enter 
tained  by  any  citizens  of  the  United  States."  After  the  raid, 
Mr.  Floyd  recalled  the  friendly  warning  and,  feeling  that  John 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY 

Brown's  attack  had  more  than  local  significance,  had  it  pub 
lished,  "that  the  country  might  be  put  on  their  guard  against 
anything  like  a  concerted  movement."  Again  John  Brown 
had  encountered  good  fortune.  Had  the  easy-going  Floyd 
connected  the  John  Brown  of  the  letter  with  the  John  Brown 
for  whose  apprehension  the  President  of  the  United  States 
was  offering  a  reward  of  $250,  he  might  at  least  have  made 
some  investigation  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  perhaps  have  pre 
vented  the  attack  by  increasing  the  guards. 

For  a  long  time  the  authorship  of  the  so-called  "Floyd 
letter"  was  in  doubt.  The  survivors  of  the  attack  on  Harper's 
Ferry  and  their  friends  were  naturally  eager  to  find  out  who 
had  played  the  traitor.  Both  Moffet  and  Realf  were  sus 
pected,  and  also  a  Cincinnati  editor,  Edmund  Babb  by  name. 
Not  until  comparatively  recent  years  was  the  mystery  ex 
plained,  when  it  appeared  that  the  motive  behind  it  was  not 
one  of  hostility  to  Brown  or  friendliness  to  the  South,  but  a 
desire  to  preserve  Brown's  life  from  his  own  folly  by  giving  an 
alarm  which  would  cause  him  to  abandon  his  rash  enterprise. 
"Our  only  thought,"  says  the  author  of  the  letter,  David  J. 
Gue,  "was  to  protect  Brown  from  the  consequences  of  his 
own  rashness  and  devotion,  without  injuring  him,  or  letting 
him  fall  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies."  66  In  August,  1859, 
Mr.  Gue  with  a  brother,  Benjamin  F.  Gue,  and  a  cousin, 
A.  L.  Smith,  of  Buffalo,  were  residing  in  a  log-cabin  in  Scott 
County,  Iowa,  twenty  miles  from  Springdale,  to  which  place 
they  drove  on  August  13,  in  order  to  visit  Moses  Varney  and 
other  friends  of  their  own  Quaker  persuasion.  To  Smith, 
on  August  14,  Varney  revealed  the  details  of  Brown's  plans, 
exclaiming:  "Something  must  be  done  to  save  their  lives.  I 
cannot  betray  their  confidence  in  me.  Consult  your  friends. 
But  do  something!"  That  day,  on  their  return,  Smith  in 
formed  the  Gues,  and  they  discussed  at  length  plans  of  inter 
vention,  determined  not  to  let  Brown  and  his  men  rush  into 
death  if  they  could  help  it.  They  could  not  betray  Varney. 
They  felt  themselves  young  and  inexperienced,  yet  dared  not 
consult  their  elders.  At  last  they  determined  to  write  two  let 
ters,  from  different  localities,  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  giving 
facts  enough  to  alarm  him.  This,  they  thought,  would  occa 
sion  an  increase  of  the  guard  at  the  Harper's  Ferry  arsenal. 


4i2  JOHN  BROWN 

This  Cook  would  see,  would  understand  to  mean  that  the 
authorities  were  informed,  and  would  warn  Brown,  who  would 
then  lead  his  men  away  to  safety.  It  was  not  easy  to  word 
a  letter  so  as  to  command  attention,  while  anonymous.  Yet 
they  wished  to  conceal  their  identity,  in  order  not  to  be  called 
on  to  testify  further.  So  they  gave  Brown's  name,  thinking 
that  his  past  record  would  gain  credence  for  their  story. 
Smith  dated  his  letter  Philadelphia,  and  enclosed  it  in  a  sealed, 
stamped  envelope  addressed  to  Mr.  Floyd.  This  he  enclosed 
to  the  Postmaster  of  Philadelphia  and  mailed  it  at  Wheatland, 
Clinton  County,  Iowa.  David  J.  Gue  addressed  his  to  "  J.  B. 
Floyd,  Sec'y  of  War,"  marked  it  "  Private,"  enclosed  it  to  the 
Postmaster  of  Cincinnati,  and  mailed  it  at  Big  Rock.  This 
was  the  letter  that  became  historic.  They  hoped  to  convey 
the  idea  of  two  persons,  non-sympathizers  with  John  Brown, 
who,  at  widely  different  places,  had  accidentally  learned  of  the 
affair,  and  felt  it  a  duty  to  warn  the  Government.  The  post 
master  at  Cincinnati  forwarded  the  letter  to  Mr.  Floyd,  but 
the  missive  sent  to  Philadelphia  never  reached  its  destination. 
Fortunately  for  his  peace  of  mind,  John  Brown  received  no 
inkling  of  this  well-meant  effort  to  frustrate  his  life's  ambi 
tion.  He  had  other  worries  in  sufficiency  to  occupy  him.  The 
last  financial  question  was,  however,  easily  solved  for  him  in 
August  and  September,67  and  on  the  eve  of  the  raid  there 
arrived  a  well-to-do  recruit,  —  the  final  one,  —  Francis  J. 
Meriam,  of  Boston,  who  placed  six  hundred  dollars  in  gold  in 
the  joint  treasury.  The  faithful  colored  friend  in  Brooklyn, 
Mrs.  Gloucester,  forwarded  another  contribution  of  ten  dol 
lars  through  Frederick  Douglass,68  and  some  other  small  gifts 
were  probably  received.  Douglass  brought  Mrs.  Gloucester's 
contribution  to  Chambersburg,  when,  at  Brown's  request,  he 
met  him  there  for  a  final  conference  on  August  19,  20  and  21. 
Through  Harry  Watson,  a  colored  Chambersburg  agent  of  the 
Underground  Railroad,  of  great  service  to  Brown  at  this  time, 
Douglass  soon  found  the  appointed  rendezvous,  in  an  old  stone- 
quarry,  and  here  Douglass,  Shields  Green,  Kagi  and  Brown 
sat  down  to  talk  over  the  enterprise.  The  colored  orator 
vehemently  opposed  the  taking  of  the  arsenal,  when  that  plan 
was  unfolded  to  him,  and,  according  to  his  own  story,  char 
acterized  it  as  assuredly  fatal  to  all  engaged.89  "It  would  be 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  413 

an  attack  upon  the  federal  government,  and  would  array  the 
whole  country  against  us.  ...  I  told  him  .  .  .  that  all  his 
arguments,  and  all  his  descriptions  of  the  place,  convinced  me 
that  he  was  going  into  a  perfect  steel-trap,  and  that  once  in  he 
would  never  get  out  alive."  Finally,  Douglass  said  that,  as  the 
plan  was  so  completely  changed,  he  should  return  home,  and 
turning  to  Shields  Green,  a  negro  he  had  brought  from  Roch 
ester  with  him,  asked  him  what  he  should  do.  Shields  Green 
promptly  answered,  "  I  b'lieve  I  '11  go  wid  de  ole  man."  Brown 
could  not  conceal  his  disappointment  at  Douglass's  defection. 
11 1  will  defend  you  with  my  life,"  he  said.  "  I  want  you  for  a 
special  purpose.  When  I  strike,  the  bees  will  begin  to  swarm, 
and  I  shall  want  you  to  help  me  hive  them."  Douglass's  with 
drawal,  as  has  already  been  stated,  subjected  him  to  consider 
able  criticism,  not  only  for  his  change  of  mind,  but  because 
of  the  way  he  withdrew,  and  of  what  he  afterward  said  and 
wrote  about  the  raid. 

Other  men,  colored  and  white,  disappointed  Brown.  J.  H. 
Harris,  later  the  colored  Congressman  from  North  Carolina, 
and  a  member  of  the  Chatham  convention,  wrote  from  Cleve 
land,  August  22,  that  he  was  disgusted  with  himself  "and  the 

whole  negro  set, 'em."  70  Alexis  Hinckley,  a  family 

connection  of  Brown's  at  North  Elba,  who  had  been  ready  the 
year  before,  was  not  on  hand  now  because  of  domestic  trou 
bles;  71  Realf  had  quite  disappeared;  George  B.  Gill  did  not 
"repent"  until  too  late;  and  R.  J.  Hinton,  also,  started  too 
late.  Henry  Thompson  and  Jason  and  Salmon  Brown  were 
averse  to  joining,  and  Richard  Richardson  could  not  be 
induced  to  leave  Canada,  —  indeed,  the  Canadian  negro  rein 
forcement  that  Brown  had  counted  upon  wholly  failed  to 
materialize,  except  in  the  case  of  Osborn  P.  Anderson,  who 
paid  his  own  way.  Perhaps  it  was  too  much  to  expect  that 
many  men  who  had,  at  the  risk  of  torture,  escaped  from  life 
long  bondage,  should  now  be  willing  to  place  their  necks  in 
the  noose  again ;  perhaps  they  were  not  properly  informed  as 
to  the  hour  for  the  revolt. 

For  John  Brown,  Jr.,  seems  to  have  been  the  victim  of  a 
curious  mental  aberration.  Although  he  had  shipped  the  arms 
to  Chambersburg  and  apologized  for  the  delay  in  getting  them 
off, he  suddenly  wrote  on  September  8  to  Kagi : 72  "From  what 


4H  JOHN  BROWN 

I  even,  had  understood,  I  had  supposed  you  would  not  think  it 
best  to  commence  opening  the  coal  banks  before  spring,  unless 
circumstances  should  make  it  important.  However,  I  suppose 
the  reasons  are  satisfactory  to  you  and  if  so,  those  who  own 
similar  shares,  ought  not  to  object."  Kagi  was  constantly  urg 
ing  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  send  forward  men,  but  without  much 
avail.  The  latter's  trip  to  New  York,  Boston  and  Canada, 
in  August,  also  seems  to  have  been  of  little  use ;  it  is  obvious 
that  a  stronger  forwarding  agent  —  Kagi,  for  instance  — 
would  have  obtained  many  more  recruits.  Certainly,  the 
"associations"  which  John  Brown,  Jr.,  formed  in  Canada  for 
recruiting  purposes  were  never  heard  from;  but  it  would  be 
wrong  to  attribute  this  to  any  lack  of  valor  on  the  part  of  the 
negroes,  —  as  some  have  tried  to,  —  in  the  absence  of  definite 
information  as  to  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  statements  and  directions. 
There  were  a  number  of  white  men  who  claimed  later  an 
intention  to  join,  and  alleged  misinformation  as  to  the  ex 
act  date,  besides  Hinton  and  Gill.  Charles  W.  Lenhart,  of 
Kansas  fame,  is  not  of  this  number.  He  had  settled  down  to 
the  study  of  the  law  in  Cincinnati,  and  decided  to  stick  to  it. 
Gradually,  however,  the  officers  and  men  of  the  tiny  army 
of  the  Provisional  Government  did  assemble  at  the  Kennedy 
Farm,  until  there  were  in  all  twenty-one  men  besides  the 
commander-in-chief .  Watson  Brown  and  the  brothers  Thomp 
son,  William  and  Dauphin,  arrived  on  August  6.73  Next  came 
Tidd,  then  Stevens,  followed  shortly  thereafter  by  Hazlett, 
Taylor  and  the  two  Coppocs.  Leeman  was  on  hand  toward 
the  end  of  August,  being  preceded,  after  the  Douglass  con 
ference,  by  Shields  Green,  who,  in  company  with  Owen  Brown, 
narrowly  escaped  being  taken  by  some  men  who  pursued  them 
when  coming  down  from  Chambersburg.  As  they  lay  con 
cealed  in  a  thicket,  in  a  corn-field  near  Hagerstown,  three 
passers-by  caught  sight  of  Owen's  coat  and,  suspicious  that 
there  might  be  a  runaway  slave  episode  at  hand,  returned 
twice  to  catechize  Owen  and  Green.  Finally,  Owen  was  com 
pelled  to  frighten  them  off  with  his  revolver.  Instantly,  he 
and  Green  set  out  for  the  mountains  and  travelled  all  night, 
pursued  by  parties  of  searchers,  often  heard  and  sometimes 
seen,  finally  reaching  Kennedy  Farm  in  a  nearly  exhausted 
condition.  "Oh,  what  a  poor  fool  I  am!"  said  Green  to  his 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  '415 

companion  on  the  way.  "  I  had  got  away  out  of  slavery,  and 
here  I  have  got  back  into  the  eagle's  claw  again!"  74  There 
after,  Owen  Brown  abandoned  his  wagon  trips  to  Chambers- 
burg.  When  Osborn  P.  Anderson  arrived,  on  September  25,™ 
all  the  men  were  on  hand  except  John  Copeland,  Lewis  S. 
Leary  and  Francis  J.  Meriam.  The  others  who  had  joined 
were  Cook,  from  Harper's  Ferry,  and  Dangerfield  Newby,  a 
negro  who  had  been  given  his  freedom,  and  was  now  hoping 
to  achieve  with  the  rifle  the  release  of  his  wife  and  seven  chil 
dren  who  remained  in  bondage.  As  late  as  August  i6,76this 
wife  and  mother  begged  her  husband  to  buy  her  and  the  baby 
that  had  just  "commenced  to  crawl,"  "as  soon  as  possible,  for 
if  you  do  not  get  me  somebody  else  will."  "Oh,  Dear  Danger- 
field,"  wrote  this  poor  slave  woman,  "come  this  fall  without 
fail,  money  or  no  money  I  want  to  see  you  so  much:  that  is 
one  bright  hope  I  have  before  me."  But  fate  decreed  that 
Newby  should  neither  save  his  wife  from  sale  South,  nor  ever 
see  the  baby  which  had  just "  commenced  to  crawl,"  but  whose 
body  belonged  to  some  one  else  than  its  parents. 

It  was  a  strangely  mixed  company  which  had  now  assem 
bled  to  undergo  close  confinement  in  the  cabin  or  the  house, 
prior  to  a  brief  day  or  two  of  activity  and  disaster.  All  day 
long  they  lay  in  their  garrets  for  fear  of  detection.  But,  ill- 
educated  as  most  of  them  were,  rough,  unvarnished,  some 
with  soiled  lives  behind  them,  their  hearts  throbbed  with  a 
mighty  purpose;  the  tie  that  bound  them  together  was  the 
outcry  of  their  natures  against  the  monstrous  wrong  they  now 
beheld  at  close  quarters.  They  were  willing  to  give  their  lives 
for  the  sake  of  others,  that  others  might  live  and  be  free ;  and 
"a  greater  love  than  this  hath  no  man."  They  had  willingly 
turned  their  backs  upon  their  homes  and  upon  the  women 
and  little  children  some  of  these  harbored.  There  is  extant  a 
most  touching  series  of  letters  between  Watson  Brown  and  his 
young  wife,  which  no  one  can  read  unmoved,  even  fifty  years 
after,  for  the  Browns  have  all  had  the  gift  of  earnest  and  mov 
ing  English.  There  had  been  born  to  them,  just  before  Watson 
left  for  the  front,  a  boy  baby,  to  whom  was  given  the  name  of 
Frederick,  the  Kansas  victim.  "Oh,  Bell,"  wrote  Watson  to 
the  wife  who  was  so  soon  to  lose  at  one  fell  stroke  her  husband, 
her  two  brothers  (the  Thompsons),  and  her  brother-in-law: 


4i 6  JOHN  BROWN 

"  I  do  want  to  see  you  and  the  little  fellow  very  much  but  must 
wait.  There  was  a  slave  near  where  we  live  whose  wife  was  sold  to 
go  South  the  other  day  and  he  was  found  hanging  in  Thomas  Ken 
nedy's  orchard,  dead,  the  next  morning.  I  cannot  come  home  as  long 
as  such  things  are  done  here.  ...  I  sometimes  think  perhaps  we 
shall  not  meet  again."  Later,  he  wrote:  "If  we  should  not  [meet] 
you  have  an  object  to  live  for,  —  to  be  a  mother  to  our  little  Fred. 
He  is  not  quite  a  reality  to  me  yet."  And  again,  on  October  14:  "We 
are  all  eager  for  the  work  and  confident  of  success.  There  was  an 
other  slave  murdered  near  our  place  the  other  day,  making  in  all  five 
slaves  murdered  and  one  committed  suicide  near  our  place  since  we 
lived  here.  ...  I  can  but  commend  you  to  yourself  and  our  friends 
if  I  should  never  see  you  again."  " 

And  the  brave  wife  wrote,  in  reply,  of  her  infant's  pranks, 
and  then  added :  "  Now  Watson  keep  up  good  courage  and  do 
not  worry  about  me  and  come  back  as  soon  as  possible.  I 
think  of  you  all  night  in  my  dreams."  78 

When  men  feel  as  did  Watson  Brown,  it  is  easy  to  go  to  cer 
tain  death;  this  the  Harper's  Ferry  plan  seemed  to  many  of 
those  assembled  at  the  Kennedy  Farm.  Twice  at  least  there 
was  almost  a  revolt  against  the  armory  plan.  Tidd,  on  one 
occasion,  felt  so  outraged  and  angered  at  it  that  he  left  the 
farm  and  went,  says  Mrs.  Adams,  for  three  days  to  Cook's 
house,  near  the  Ferry,  "to  cool  off."  Once  John  Brown  ten 
dered  his  resignation  as  commander-in-chief ;  but  it  was  not 
accepted.  He  was  their  leader  and  they  would  follow  him.  On 
the  1 8th  of  August,  Owen  Brown  gave  his  father  the  following 
letter  on  behalf  of  those  on  hand : 79 

HARPERS  FERRY,  Aug.  i8th,  '59. 
DEAR  SIR, 

We  have  all  agreed  to  sustain  your  decisions,  until  you  have 
proved  incompetent,  &  many  of  us  will  adhere  to  your  decisions  as 
long  as  you  will. 

Your  Friend, 

OWEN  SMITH. 

They  were  ready  to  do  or  die.  But,  meanwhile,  the  weary 
weeks  of  waiting  —  the  raid  was  finally  set  for  October  —  were 
trying  indeed.  Of  their  daily  life,  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams 
has  kindly  furnished  the  following  recollections: 

"My  father  encouraged  debating  and  discussions  on  all  subjects 
among  the  men,  often  taking  a  lively  part  in  the  debate  himself. 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  417 

Sometimes  it  would  commence  between  two  in  the  dining  room, 
then  others  would  join,  those  who  were  upstairs  coming  down  into 
the  room  to  listen  or  take  a  part,  some  sitting  on  the  stairs  ready  to 
jump  and  run  back  out  of  sight,  if  the  danger  signal  was  given  that 
someone  was  approaching.  Although  he  did  not  always  agree  with 
them,  he  encouraged  them  to  discuss  religious  questions  with  him, 
and  to  express  themselves  freely  on  the  subject.  It  is  claimed  by 
many  that  they  were  a  wild,  ignorant,  fanatical  or  adventurous  lot 
of  rough  men.  This  is  not  so,  they  were  sons  from  good  families  well 
trained  by  orthodox  religious  parents,  too  young  to  have  settled 
views  on  many  subjects,  impulsive,  generous,  too  good  themselves  to 
believe  that  God  could  possibly  be  the  harsh  unforgiving  being  He 
was  at  that  day  usually  represented  to  be.  Judging  them  by  the 
rules  laid  down  by  Christ,  I  think  they  were  uncommonly  good  and 
sincere  Christians  if  the  term  Christian  means  follower  of  Christ's 
example,  and  too  great  lovers  of  freedom  to  endure  to  be  tram 
meled  by  church  or  creed.  Self  interest  or  self  aggrandizement  was 
the  farthest  thing  from  their  thoughts  or  intentions.  It  was  a  clear 
case  of  an  effort  to  help  those  who  were  oppressed  and  could  not  help 
themselves,  a  practical  application  of  the  Golden  Rule.  I  heard 
them  ask  father  one  day  if  the  money  to  pay  the  expenses  was 
furnished  by  orthodox  church  members  or  liberal  Christians.  He 
said  he  must  confess  that  it  came  from  the  liberal  ones.  Tidd  spoke 
up  and  said  1 1  thought  so,  the  orthodox  ones  do  not  often  do  such 
things.' 

"After  breakfast  Father  usually  read  a  chapter  in  the  Bible  and 
made  a  plain,  short,  sensible  prayer,  standing  while  praying.  (I  have 
seen  him  kneel,  but  not  often.)  This  was  his  custom  both  at  home 
and  at  Kennedy  Farm.  Evenings  he  usually  sat  on  a  stool  in  the 
kitchen  because  it  was  warm  there,  and  he  once  told  me  he  did  not 
wish  to  disturb  the  'boys,'  or  spoil  their  enjoyment  and  fun  by  his 
presence  in  the  living  room.  He  thought  they  did  not  feel  quite  so 
free  when  he  was  there. 

"As  the  table  was  not  large  enough  for  all  to  sit  down  at  one  time 
and  the  supply  of  dishes  quite  limited,  Martha  and  I  usually  ate 
alone  after  all  the  rest  were  done.  She  'dished  up'  the  victuals  and 
washed  dishes  while  I  carried  things  into  the  room  and  waited  on  the 
table.  There  was  no  door  between  the  kitchen  and  dining  room  then, 
both  rooms  opened  on  to  the  porch,  making  a  great  deal  of  walking 
back  and  forth.  After  the  meals  I  cleared  off  the  table  and  washed 
the  dishes  and  swept  the  floors  of  the  room  and  porch,  constantly  on 
the  look  out  for  Mrs.  Huffmaster,  our  nearest  neighbor.  She  was  a 
worse  plague  than  the  fleas.  Of  our  supplies  of  food  a  few  things 
were  occasionally  bought  at  Harper's  Ferry  when  the  men  went  to 
the  post  office  after  The  Baltimore  Sun,  which  father  subscribed 
for.  Most  of  the  mail  was  sent  to  Kagi  at  Chambersburg  —  merely 
for  appearance  sake.  The  rest  of  our  food  supplies  was  purchased  at 
the  towns  and  all  along  the  road  from  Chambersburg  down,  a  few 


4i8  JOHN  BROWN 

things  at  a  time  or  place  so  as  not  to  arouse  suspicion.  Owen  brought 
a  barrel  of  eggs  at  one  time  because  they  were  cheaper  than  meat. 
We  had  potatoes,  onions  and  bacon.  Then  Martha  was  an  extra 
good  'light  bread'  maker.  .  .  .  We  had  a  cookstove  in  the  small 
kitchen  off  the  porch  upstairs,  where  we  did  our  cooking.  We  used 
the  basement  kitchen  and  other  cemented  room  on  the  ground  floor 
only  for  storing  purposes. 

"The  middle  room  in  the  second  story  was  used  for  dining  and 
general  living  room  as  the  stairway  from  above  came  down  into  that 
room.  The  men  came  down  and  took  their  meals  at  the  table,  except 
on  special  occasions  when  some  stranger  or  neighbor  was  calling 
there.  If  he  or  she  stayed  too  long  something  was  carried  up  the 
ladder  at  the  back  end  of  the  house  and  passed  into  the  window  to 
the  men.  Sometimes  Mrs.  Huff  master  with  her  brood  of  little  ones 
would  be  seen  coming  while  the  men  were  at  the  table  eating.  They 
would  then  gather  up  all  the  things,  table-cloth  and  all,  and  go  so 
quietly  upstairs  that  no  one  would  believe  they  existed,  finish  their 
meal  up  there  and  come  back  down  bringing  the  things,  when  the 
visitor  had  gone.  We  did  not  have  any  stove  or  way  of  warming  any 
of  the  rooms  except  the  kitchen.  The  white  men  most  of  them,  would 
watch  their  chance,  when  no  one  was  in  sight  and  skulk  into  the 
kitchen  and  stay  and  visit  Martha  awhile  to  relieve  the  monotony. 
If  any  one  came  they  would  climb  the  ladder  into  the  loft  over  the 
kitchen  and  stay  there  until  Mrs.  Huffmaster  (usually)  was  gone. 
The  colored  men  were  never  allowed  to  be  seen  by  daylight  outside 
of  the  dining  room.  After  Mrs.  Huffmaster  saw  Shields  Green  in  that 
room,  they  stayed  upstairs  closely. 

"  I  was  there  to  keep  the  outside  world  from  discovering  that  John 
Brown  and  his  men  were  in  their  neighborhood.  I  used  to  help 
Martha  with  the  cooking  all  she  would  let  me.  Father  would  often 
tell  me  that  I  must  not  let  any  work  interfere  with  my  constant 
watchfulness.  That  others  could  help  do  the  housework,  but  he 
depended  on  me  to  watch.  When  I  sat  on  the  porch  or  just  inside  the 
door,  in  the  day  time,  I  either  read  or  sewed,  to  appear  occupied  if 
any  one  came  near.  When  I  washed  the  dishes  I  stood  at  the  end  of 
the  table,  where  I  could  see  out  of  the  window  and  open  door  if  any 
one  was  approaching  the  house.  I  was  constantly  on  the  look-out 
while  carrying  the  victuals  across  the  porch,  from  the  kitchen,  and 
while  I  was  sweeping  and  tidying  the  rooms,  and  always  at  my  post 
on  the  porch  while  the  men  ate  their  meals,  when  not  passing  in  and 
out  from  the  kitchen  with  food,  or  waiting  on  them  in  other  ways  at 
the  table.  My  evenings  were  spent  on  the  porch  or  sitting  on  the 
stairs,  watching,  and  listening. 

"The  men  did  nearly  all  the  washing;  we  spread  the  clothes  on  the 
fence  and  on  the  ground  to  dry.  Martha  and  I  would  bring  them  in 
as  fast  as  they  dried,  but  Mrs.  Huffmaster  would  have  some  excuse 
to  come  to  the  garden,  which  she  had  rented  before  we  went  there, 
and  then  she  would  notice  the  clothes  and  tell  us  '  Your  men  folks 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  419 

has  a  right  smart  lot  of  shirts.'  No  one  can  ever  imagine  the  pester 
ing  torment  that  little  barefooted  woman  and  her  four  little  children 
were  to  us.  Martha  called  them  the  little  hen  and  chickens.  We 
were  in  constant  fear  that  people  would  become  suspicious  enough 
to  attempt  an  investigation  and  try  to  arrest  the  men.  The  rifles 
were  in  boxes  called  'furniture'  and  were  used  to  sit  on  and  kept 
standing  against  the  walls  in  the  dining  room,  one  box  of  pistols 
being  in  one  bedroom  near  Martha's  bed.  She  used  it  for  a  stand, 
table  or  dressing  case,  whatever  name  you  wish  to  call  it  by.  I  had 
to  tell  people  who  called  that:  'My  mother  was  coming  soon  and 
that  she  was  very  particular  and  had  requested  us  to  not  unpack  her 
furniture  until  she  arrived,'  to  account  for  the  boxes  in  the  room. 

"  At  Kennedy  Farm,  my  father  wore  a  short  beard,  an  inch  or  an 
inch  and  a  half  long.  He  had  made  this  change  as  a  disguise,  on  his 
return  from  Kansas,  thinking  it  more  likely  to  disguise  him  than  a 
clean  face  or  than  the  long  beard. 

"Hazlett  and  Leeman  were  the  hardest  ones  to  keep  caged  of  all 
of '  my  invisibles,'  as  I  called  them.  They  would  get  out  and  wander 
off  in  the  woods  and  even  go  down  to  Harper's  Ferry,  going  to 
Cook's  home  and  back  in  daylight.  We  were  so  self-conscious  that 
we  feared  danger  when  no  man  pursued  or  even  thought  of  it. 
Watson,  Oliver,  Leeman  and  Kagi  were  all  a  little  more  than  six  feet 
in  height,  J.  G.  Anderson  and  Dauphin  Thompson  were  next  them 
in  height  but  a  little  less  than  six  feet;  William  Thompson  and 
Stewart  Taylor  were  above  or  about  medium  height  but  not  quite 
as  tall  as  the  two  last.  Dangerfield  Newby  was  I  think  above 
medium  size,  spare  and  showed  the  Scotch  blood  plainly  in  his  looks 
and  ways.  His  father  was  a  Scotchman,  who  took  his  family  of 
mulatto  children  into  Ohio  and  gave  them  their  freedom.  Newby 
was  quiet,  sensible  and  very  unobtrusive.  Stevens  and  Stewart 
Taylor  were  the  only  ones  who  believed  in  'spiritualism'  and  their 
belief  was  more  theoretical  than  otherwise.  The  latter  was  nearer 
to  a  'born  crank'  than  any  other  man  in  the  company.  He  believed 
in  dreams  and  all  sorts  of  'isms,'  and  predicted  his  own  death,  which 
really  came  true.  He  talked  as  coolly  about  it  as  if  he  were  going 
into  another  room.  He  considered  it  his  duty  to  go  to  Harper's  Ferry 
and  go  he  did,  although  he  knew  he  was  going  to  his  end.  He  was 
all  the  time  studying  and  'improving  his  mind'  as  he  called  it.  He 
had  learned  to  write  shorthand.  O.  P.  Anderson  was  accustomed 
to  being  confined  in  the  house,  being  a  printer  by  trade,  so  that  he 
was  not  so  restive  as  some  of  the  others. 

"William  Thompson  was  an  easy-going,  good-natured  person  who 
enjoyed  telling  funny  stories,  mimicking  old  people  for  the  amuse 
ment  of  any  company  he  was  in.  But  for  all  his  nonsense  he  pos 
sessed  an  abundance  of  good  common  sense.  When  the  occasion 
seemed  to  demand  it,  he  knew  how  to  use  it  to  advantage.  He  was 
kind  hearted  and  generous  to  a  fault.  Dauphin  Thompson  was  the 
youngest  one  of  a  family  of  eighteen  children.  He  was  a  quiet  per- 


420  JOHN  BROWN 

son,  read  a  good  deal,  said  little.  He  was  a  perfect  blond,  with  yel 
low,  curly  hair  and  blue  eyes,  innocent  as  a  baby,  nearly  six  feet 
high,  good  size,  well  proportioned  —  a  handsome  young  man.  I 
heard  Hazlett  and  Leeman,  one  day,  saying  that  '  Barclay  Coppoc 
and  Dauphin  Thompson  were  too  nearly  like  good  girls  to  make 
soldiers ; '  that  they  ought  to  have  gone  to  Kansas  and  '  roughed  it ' 
awhile  to  toughen  them,  before  coming  down  there.  To  while  away 
the  time  the  men  read  magazines,  sang,  told  stories,  argued  ques 
tions,  played  cards  and  checkers,  studied  military  tactics,  and 
drilled  under  Stevens.  When  there  was  a  thunderstorm  they  would 
jump  about  and  play,  making  all  kinds  of  noise  to  rest  themselves, 
as  they  thought  no  one  could  hear  them  then." 

At  the  end  of  September  orders  came  for  the  women  guar 
dians  of  the  conspirators  to  leave  for  North  Elba.  The  exact 
date  for  the  attack  was  not  yet  fixed,  but  Oliver  Brown,  who 
escorted  his  wife  and  sister  as  far  as  Troy,  was  ordered  to 
hurry  back,  as  the  party  might  be  obliged  to  commence  op 
erations  before  he  returned.80  The  girls  left  Kennedy  Farm 
on  September  29,  and  with  them  went  the  gay  spirits  of  the 
garrison.  "The  men  then  sobered  down,"  said  O.  P.  Ander 
son  afterwards,  "and  acted  like  earnest  men  working  hard 
preparing  for  the  coming  raid."81  Among  their  other  occupa 
tions  they  then  busied  themselves  with  overhauling  revolvers 
and  rifles,  browning  the  barrels,  and  affixing  the  nearly  one 
thousand  pike-heads  to  the  shafts  of  wood.  On  the  3Oth  of 
September,  Annie  and  Martha  parted  forever  from  John 
Brown  in  the  station  at  Harrisburg,82  where  he  had  just  re 
turned  from  a  hasty  trip  to  Philadelphia  with  Kagi  on  some 
final  important  business,  and  whence  the  girls  went  on  to 
New  York.  John  Brown's  trips  from  the  Kennedy  Farm  were 
quite  frequent  during  the  summer,  but  this  is  the  only  re 
corded  journey  beyond  Chambersburg.  There  is  a  fable  that 
he  made  a  hasty  trip  to  Iowa  and  Kansas  in  the  summer  of 
1859,  but  that  is  wholly  without  foundation.  Between  July 
5  and  October  16  there  is  a  record  of  eight  trips  to  Cham 
bersburg,  in  addition  to  his  passing  through  and  returning 
on  the  visit  to  Philadelphia. 

Francis  Jackson  Meriam,  the  grandson  of  the  Abolitionist 
leader,  Francis  Jackson,  of  Boston,  arrived  at  Chambersburg 
the  day  after  Brown's  final  departure  for  Harper's  Ferry. 
Just  before  Meriam  appeared  with  his  six  hundred  dollars 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  421 

in  gold,  John  Brown  had  been  compelled  to  borrow  forty 
dollars  from  Barclay  Coppoc,83  —  to  such  straits  was  the 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Provisional  Government  reduced. 
"The  good  Father  in  Heaven  who  furnishes  daily  bread  sent 
Francis  J.  Meriam  down  there  with  his  money  to  help  them 
just  at  the  moment  it  was  needed,"  says  Mrs.  Adams.  His 
money  was  Mr.  Meriam's  only  contribution  of  value  to  the 
cause.  Erratic  and  unbalanced,  frail  in  his  physique,  his  join 
ing  Brown  had  been  strongly  opposed  by  both  Higginson  and 
Sanborn,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  "very  unfit  person" 
for  Brown's  enterprise.84  "The  only  very  positive  thing  about 
Meriam  was  his  hatred  of  slavery,"  was  Owen  Brown's  judg 
ment  of  him.85  In  1858,  Meriam  had  taken  a  trip  to  Hayti 
with  James  Redpath ;  in  that  year  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  give  a  large  portion  of  his  inheritance  to  the  anti-slavery 
cause  as  soon  as  he  obtained  it.  He  had  tried  to  join  John 
Brown  in  1858,  and  was  seriously  planning  devoting  his  life 
to  aiding  slaves  to  escape,  for  he  wrote  to  a  boyhood  friend 
asking  what  the  consequences  of  detection  would  be,  death 
or  imprisonment.86  It  was  Lewis  Hayden,  a  Boston  negro, 
who,  on  meeting  Meriam  on  the  street,  told  him  of  Brown's 
being  at  Chambersburg  and  in  dire  financial  distress.  Meriam 
set  off  almost  at  once,  after  seeing  Higginson  in  Worces 
ter,  and  as  soon  as  he  arrived  in  Chambersburg,  had  his  will 
drawn  by  Alexander  K.  McClure  (later  the  famous  Phila 
delphia  editor),  and  duly  attested.87  He  next  went  to  Philadel 
phia  and  Baltimore,  to  buy  military  supplies,  and  then  to  the 
Wager  House  at  Harper's  Ferry,  on  the  day  before  the  raid, 
being  brought  up  to  the  farm  by  one  of  Brown's  sons.  Here, 
on  Sunday  morning,  he,  the  brothers  Coppoc,  Leary,  Cope- 
land  and  Green  were  told  of  the  plan  of  attack,  heard  the 
Provisional  Constitution  read  by  Stevens,  and  took  the  oath 
of  fidelity  and  secrecy  administered  by  John  Brown  him 
self.88  The  latter  promptly  took  Meriam's  measure  and  as 
signed  to  him  the  duty  of  guarding  the  arms  left  at  Kennedy 
Farm,  to  which  fact  he  owed  his  escape  to  Canada.  He  was 
then  twenty-two  years  of  age,  and  had  lost  the  sight  of  one 
eye. 

On  October  8,  Brown  sent  his  last  letter  to  his  family  prior 
to  the  raid:89 


422  JOHN  BROWN 

CHAMBERSBURG,  PA.  8th  Oct,  1859. 
DEAR  WIFE;  &  CHILDREN  ALL 

Oliver  returned  safe  on  Wednesday  of  this  week.  I  want  Bell,  & 
Martha  both  to  feel  that  they  have  a  home  with  you  untill  we  return. 
We  shall  do  all  in  our  power  to  provide  for  the  wants  of  the  whole  as 
one  family  ;  till  that  time.  If  Martha;  &  Anne,  had  any  money  left 
after  getting  home :  I  wish  it  to  be  used  to  make  all  as  comfortable 
as  may  be ;  for  the  present.  All  are  in  usualy  good  health.  I  expect 
John  will  send  you  some  assistance  soon.  Write  him  all  you  want  to 
say  to  us.  God  bless  you  all 

YOUR  AFFECTIONATE  HUSBAND  &  FATHER 

Two  days  later,  October  10,  Kagi  sent  from  Chambersburg 
his  last  report  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  Ohio,  who  was  still  writ 
ing  of  the  recruits  he  was  going  to  forward  in  the  immediate 
future,  but  never  got  off.  This  letter  of  Kagi's  is  particularly 
important,  since  it  is  a  clear  reflection  of  Brown's  own  ideas 
as  to  the  prospects  for  success  in  the  venture  before  them : 90 

Your  father  was  here  yesterday  but  had  not  time  to  write  before 
returning.  I  shall  leave  here  this  afternoon  "for  good."  This  is  the 
last  of  our  stay  here,  for  we  have  not  $5  left,  and  the  men  must  be 
given  work  or  they  will  find  it  themselves.  We  shall  not  be  able  to 
receive  any  thing  from  you  after  to-day.  It  will  not  do  for  any  one 
to  try  to  find  us  now.  You  must  by  all  means  keep  back  the  men 
you  talked  of  sending  and  furnish  them  work  to  live  upon  until  you 
receive  further  instructions.  Any  one  arriving  here  after  to-day  and 
trying  to  join  us,  would  be  trying  a  very  hazardous  and  foolish 
experiment.  They  must  keep  off  the  border  until  we  open  the  way 
clear  up  to  the  line  (M.  &  D's)  from  the  South.  Until  then,  it  will 
be  just  as  dangerous  here  as  on  the  other  side,  in  fact  more  so:  for, 
there  there  will  be  protection  also,  but  not  here.  It  will  not  do  to 
write  to  Harper's  Ferry.  It  will  never  get  there  —  would  do  no  good 

if  it  did.  You  can  communicate  with  us  thus *  (This 

must  be  a  profound  secret)  Be  sure  no  one  gets  into  trouble  in  trying 
to  get  to  us.  We  will  try  to  communicate  with  you  as  soon  as  pos 
sible  after  we  strike,  but  it  may  not  be  possible  for  us  to  do  so  soon. 
If  we  succeed  in  getting  news  from  the  outside  our  own  district  it 
will  be  quite  satisfactory,  but  we  have  not  the  most  distant  hope 
that  it  will  be  possible  for  us  to  receive  recruits  for  weeks,  or  quite 
likely  months  to  come.  We  must  first  make  a  complete  and  undis- 
putably  open  road  to  the  free  states.  That  will  require  both  labor 
and  time. 

This  is  just  the  right  time.  The  year's  crops  have  been  good,  and 
they  are  now  perfectly  housed,  and  in  the  best  condition  for  use. 
The  moon  is  just  right.  Slaves  are  discontented  at  this  season  more 
*  This  space  not  filled  out. 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  423 

than  at  any  other,  the  reasons  for  which  reflection  will  show  you. 
We  can't  live  longer  without  money,  —  we  could  n't  get  along 
much  longer  without  being  exposed.  A  great  religious  revival  is 
going  on,  and  has  its  advantages.  Under  its  influence,  people  who 
are  commonly  barely  unfavorable  to  Slavery  under  religious  excite 
ment  in  meetings  speak  boldly  against  it.  In  addition  to  this  and 
as  a  stimulant  to  the  religious  feeling,  a  fine  slave  man  near  our  head 
quarters,  hung  himself  a  few  days  ago  because  his  master  sold  his 
wife  away  from  him.  This  also  arouses  the  slaves.  There  are  more 
reasons  which  I  could  give,  but  I  have  not  time. 

I  will  not  close  without  saying  that  John  E.  Cook's  wife  &  chil 
dren  are  here,  (at  Mrs.  R's)  and  will  board  here  probably  until  the 
end.  She  came  on  Friday,  has  lived  at  the  "Ferry."  Her  board  is 
paid  until  the  1st  of  November,  but  after  that  we  shall  expect  to 
see  you  or  some  one  under  your  direction,  have  it  paid  monthly  in 
advance,  from  $10  to  $15  besides  the  necessary  etceteras,  clothing 
&c.  —  This  must  be  our  last  for  a  time. 

Yours 

J.  H. 

John  Brown's  last  letter  to  his  son  was  dated  October  I, 
and  read  as  follows:91 

DEAR  FRIEND:  — 

I  wrote  you  yesterday  at  Cleveland  in  which  I  forgot  to  say  that 
any  person  or  thing  that  reaches  this  place  on  Thursday  the  6th 
Octo.  inst.  will  in  all  probability  find  the  Road  open,  but  beyond  that 
day  we  cannot  be  at  all  certain  for  some  time  at  least.  If  you  were 
here,  I  could  fully  explain  all  but  cannot  do  so  now.  From  Harris- 
burg  by  Rail  Road  remember. 

"Associations"  to  hinder,  delay  and  prevent  our  Adversaries,  might 
perhaps  effect  much.  Our  active  enemies,  should  be  spotted  to  a 
man,  and  some  shrewd  person  should  be  on  the  border  to  look  after 
that  matter  somewhat  extensively.  Can  you  dig  up  a  good  and  true 
man,  to  communicate  with  us  on  the  border,  or  close  to  it  where  we 
may  name  places  from  time  to  time? 

Yours  ever 

I.  S. 

Yet,  in  the  face  of  these  two  letters,  John  Brown,  Jr., 
frequently  stated  that  the  news  of  the  raid  took  him  com 
pletely  by  surprise,  —  which  reveals  a  condition  of  mind 
hardly  helpful  to  the  grave  venture  upon  which  his  father 
was  embarked. 

Francis  Jackson  Meriam's  arrival  seems  to  have  removed 
the  last  obstacle  to  Brown's  delivering  the  attack.  Up  to  that 
time,  waiting  for  men  and  money  had  steadily  postponed  the 


424  JOHN  BROWN 

issue.  Perhaps,  too,  there  was  in  the  delay  something  of  that 
curious  indecision  that  was  so  fatal  to  the  original  project 
when  the  raid  was  undertaken,  and  which  also  occasioned  the 
delay  in  his  entering  Kansas  from  Tabor  in  1857.  Salmon 
Brown  asserts  that  the  reason  for  his  not  joining  the  expe 
dition  was  his  belief  that  his  father  would  hesitate  and  delay 
until  he  was  trapped,  precisely  as  happened,  waiting  for  cir 
cumstances  to  be  exactly  as  he  wished  them  to  be.  "I  said," 
he  declares,92  "to  the  boys  before  they  left,  'you  know  father. 
You  know  he  will  dally  till  he  is  trapped ! '  Father  had  a  pecul 
iarity  of  insisting  on  order.  I  felt  that  at  Harper's  Ferry  this 
very  thing  would  be  likely  to  trap  him.  He  would  insist  on 
getting  everything  arranged  just  to  suit  him  before  he  would 
consent  to  make  a  move."  There  has  been  a  vast  amount  of 
discussion  as  to  whether  the  raid  was  hastened  or  delayed. 
John  Brown,  Jr.'s  position  has  given  color  to  the  theory  that 
it  was  hastened;  so,  too,  has  the  fact  that  Gill  and  Hinton 
were  left  behind.  Again,  there  are  frequent  stories  that  Brown 
learned  of  a  betrayal  of  his  plans,  and  so  hurried  to  strike  the 
blow;  that  a  posse  was  being  formed  near  by  to  investigate 
the  goings  on  at  Kennedy  Farm,  which  had  to  be  anticipated; 
that  news  that  twelve  thousand  arms  were  to  be  taken  away 
from  the  Harper's  Ferry  armory  had  reached  Brown's  ears; 
and  finally  that  criticism  by  some  of  the  Boston  friends, 
who  were  impatient  at  the  expense  and  delay,  had  precip 
itated  the  attack.  The  truth  is  that  there  was  danger  of  dis 
covery  from  the  Huffmasters  and  other  neighbors,  and  that 
the  men  could  no  longer  stand  the  inaction  and  close  confine 
ment;  some  were  already  getting  out  of  hand.  When  Meri- 
am's  money  came,  it  was  the  last  impetus  needed  to  an  attack 
which  had  been  delayed  much  longer  than  any  one  dreamed 
of  when  Brown  set  out  from  Boston  for  the  last  time.  So  far 
as  climatic  conditions  were  concerned,  it  had  been  postponed 
far  too  long. 

"One  day,  while  we  were  alone  in  the  yard,"  writes  Mrs. 
Adams,  "Owen  remarked  as  he  looked  up  at  the  house:  'If 
we  succeed,  some  day  there  will  be  a  United  States  flag  over 
this  house.  If  we  do  not,  it  will  be  considered  a  den  of  land 
pirates  and  thieves.'"  It  was  with  this  conviction  that 
the  majority  of  the  men  went  to  their  doom.  All  save  Taylor 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  425 

hoped  by  some  stroke  of  fortune  to  come  out  alive ;  but  only 
a  few  believed  in  the  plan  of  campaign,  or  looked  upon 
the  arsenal  venture  as  anything  else  but  a  death-trap.  Yet 
it  was  in  an  exalted  frame  of  mind  that  they  spent  their  last 
Sabbath  and  came  together  for  their  last  meal.  For  them 
the  hour  had  struck;  their  sacrifice  was  ready  for  the  altar  of 
liberty. 


CHAPTER  XII 
HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA 

"MEN,  get  on  your  arms;  we  will  proceed  to  the  Ferry." 
/  With  these  words,  John  Brown,  Commander-in- Chief  of  the 
Provisional  Army,  set  in  motion  his  troop  of  liberators  on 
\  that  peaceful  Sabbath,  the  i6th  of  October,  1859.  It  took 
^JpjLit  a  minute  to  bring  the  horse  and  wagon  to  the  door,  to 
place  in  it  some  pikes,  fagots,  a  sledge-hammer  and  a  crow 
bar.  His  men  themselves  had  been  in  readiness  for  hours; 
they  had  but  to  buckle  on  their  arms  and  throw  over  their 
shoulders,  like  army  blankets,  the  long  gray  shawls  which 
served  some  for  a  few  brief  hours  in  lieu  of  overcoats,  and 
then  became  their  winding-sheets.  In  a  moment  more,  the 
commander-in-chief  donned  his  old  battle-worn  Kansas  cap, 
mounted  the  wagon,  and  began  the  solemn  march  through 
the  chill  fall  night  to  the  bridge  into  Harper's  Ferry,  nearly 
six  miles  away.  Tremendous  as  the  relief  of  action  was,  there 
was  no  thought  of  any  cheering  or  demonstration.  As  the 
eighteen  men  with  John  Brown  swung  down  the  little  lane  to 
the  road  from  the  farmhouse  that  had  been  their  prison  for  so 
many  weary  weeks,  they  bade  farewell  to  Captain  Owen  Brown 
and  Privates  Barclay  Coppoc  and  F.  J.  Meriam,  who  re 
mained  as  rear-guard  in  charge  of  the  arms  and  supplies.  The 
brothers  Coppoc  read  the  future  correctly,  for  they  embraced 
and  parted  as  do  men  who  know  they  are  to  meet  no  more 
on  earth.  The  damp,  lonely  night,  too,  added  to  the  solemnity 
of  it  all,  as  they  pressed  forward  through  its  gloom.  As  if  to 
intensify  the  sombreness,  they  met  not  a  living  soul  on  the 
road  to  question  their  purpose,  or  start  with  fright  at  the  sight 
of  eighteen  soldierly  men  coming  two  by  two  through  the 
darkness  as  though  risen  from  the  grave.  There  was  not  a 
sound  but  the  tramping  of  the  men  and  the  creaking  of  the 
wagon,  before  which,  in  accordance  with  a  general  order,  drawn 
up  and  carefully  read  to  all,  walked  Captains  Cook  and  Tidd, 
their  Sharp's  rifles  hung  from  their  shoulders,  their  commis- 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  427 

sions,  duly  signed  and  officially  sealed,  in  their  pockets.  They 
were  detailed  to  destroy  the  telegraph  wires  on  the  Mary 
land  side  and  then  on  the  Virginian,  while  Captains  John  H. 
Kagi  and  A.  D.  Stevens,  bravest  of  the  brave,  were  to  take 
the  bridge  watchman  and  so  strike  the  first  blow  for  liberty.1 
But  as  they  and  their  comrades  marched  rapidly  over  the 
rough  road,  Death  himself  moved  by  their  side. 

As  for  their  general,  he  not  only  was  the  sole  member  of 
the  attacking  force  to  believe  in  the  assault  on  the  property 
of  the  United  States  at  Harper's  Ferry,  but  he  was,  as  they 
neared  the  all-unsuspecting  town,  without  any  clear  and  defi 
nite  plan  of  campaign.  The  general  order  detailed  the  men 
who  were  to  garrison  various  parts  of  the  town  and  hold  the 
bridges,  but  beyond  that,  little  had  been  mapped  out.  It  was 
all  to  depend  upon  the  orders  of  the  commander-in-chief ,  who 
seemed  bent  on  violating  every  military  principle.  Thus,  he 
had  appointed  no  definite  place  for  the  men  to  retreat  to,  and 
fixed  no  hour  for  the  withdrawal  from  the  town.  He,  more 
over,  proceeded  at  once  to  defy  the  canons  by  placing  a  river 
between  himself  and  his  base  of  supplies,  —  the  Kennedy 
Farm,  —  and  then  left  no  adequate  force  on  the  river-bank 
to  insure  his  being  able  to  fall  back  to  that  base.  Hardly 
had  he  entered  the  town  when,  by  dispersing  his  men  here 
and  there,  he  made  his  defeat  as  easy  as  possible.  Moreover, 
he  had  in  mind  no  well-defined  purpose  in  attacking  Harper's 
Ferry,  save  to  begin  his  revolution  in  a  spectacular  way,  cap 
ture  a  few  slaveholders  and  release  some  slaves.  So  far  as 
he  had  thought  anything  out,  he  expected  to  alarm  the  town 
and  then,  with  the  slaves  that  had  rallied  to  him,  to  march 
back  to  the  school-house  near  the  Kennedy  Farm,  arm  his 
recruits  and  take  to  the  hills.  Another  general,  with  the  same 
purpose  in  view,  would  have  established  his  mountain  camp 
first,  swooped  down  upon  the  town  in  order  to  spread  terror 
throughout  the  State,  and  in  an  hour  or  two,  at  most,  have 
started  back  to  his  hill-top  fastness. 

Aside  from  the  opportunity  to  assail  directly  the  Federal 
Government,  Harper's  Ferry  would,  moreover,  seem  to  have 
been  the  last  place  for  an  attack  upon  the  institution  against 
which  John  Brown  was  in  arms.  It  was  by  no  means  a  typical 
Southern  town,  for  a  large  majority  of  its  three  thousand  resi- 


.-, 


428  JOHN  BROWN 

dents  were  mechanics  brought  there  from  Springfield,  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  elsewhere,  —  "foreigners"  in  the  eyes  of  the 
real  Southerners.2  The  very  slave-owners  of  the  vicinity  lived, 
not  at  the  Ferry,  but  on  their  neighboring  farms,  driving  in 
occasionally  to  the  bright  little  town,  prosperous  and  happy 
because  the  United  States  paid  regularly  and  well  the  bulk  of 
the  citizenship,  and  set  every  householder  a  good  example  by 
the  neatness  and  beauty  of  its  grounds,  adorned  as  they  were 
by  smiling  flowers  and  by  handsome  buildings.  As  for  the 
gentlemen  farmers  of  the  Virginia  vicinity,  they  were  content 
to  raise  only  what  produce  they  actually  needed ;  they  lived 
too  far  north  to  cultivate  great  crops  of  cotton.  Hence  their 
bondmen  were  largely  well-kept  house-servants,  of  the  kind 
upon  whom  the  ills  of  slavery  rested  most  lightly,  and  among 
whom  the  desire  for  freedom  was  least  keen. 

The  arsenal  to  which  John  Brown's  little  "army"  took  its 
way  had  been  established  as  far  back  as  1794,  in  the  Presi 
dency  of  George  Washington,  on  the  peninsula  formed  by 
the  juncture  of  the  Potomac  and  Shenandoah  rivers.  The 
natural  beauty  of  its  surroundings  is  greatly  enhanced  by  the 
Maryland  Heights,  thirteen  hundred  feet  high,  on  the  oppo 
site  bank  of  the  Potomac,  and  the  Loudon  Heights,  but  little 
lower,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Shenandoah,  the  two  forming, 
as  it  were,  a  gateway  to  the  Valley  of  Virginia  of  veritable 
grandeur.  Thomas  Jefferson  said  of  it:8  "The  passage  of  the 
Potomac  through  the  Blue  Ridge  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
stupendous  scenes  in  nature;  .  .  .  worth  a  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic"  to  witness;  the  heights  he  called  "monuments  of 
war  between  rivers  and  mountains  which  must  have  shaken 
the  earth  itself  to  its  centre."  Harper's  Ferry  has  but  a 
narrow,  level  space  along  each  river;  then  there  rises  a  hill 
involving  a  steep  ascent  before  one  reaches  the  plateau  of 
Bolivar  Heights.  The  town  climbs  the  hill  after  the  manner 
of  European  mountain  villages,  and  is  far  below  the  Heights. 
"You  may  climb  to  the  graveyard,"  wrote  a  traveller  in  1856, 
"by  the  lightning  rod  of  the  Episcopal  church,  or  you  may 
slide  down  the  rain-spout  of  the  hotel  to  the  ladies'  car  of  the 
Wheeling  train  —  only  you  must  take  care  not  to  fling  your 
self,  an  unpremeditated  soap-and-candle  Curtius,  down  the 
paymaster's  kitchen  chimney,  or  put  your  foot  in  the  soup 


D 


GENERAL    VIEW    OF   HARPER'S   FE 

A.  London  Heights.     B.  Shenandoah  River.     C.  Site  of  Old  Bridge  by  which  Brown  and  his  men  entered  Harpe 

with  the  road  over  which  the  ra 
(Kennedy  Farm,  the  rendezvous  of  Brown's  party  prior  to  the  raid,  lies  between  the  hills  on  the  extreme  right 


E  F  G 

Y,  FROM    MARYLAND    HEIGHTS 

'erry.     D.  New  Railroad  Bridge.     E.  Bolivar  Heights.     F.  Potomac  River.     G.  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal 

>  came  from  Kennedy  Farm. 

he  picture,  in  Maryland.     Charlestown  is  on  the   high  ground  beyond  the  curve  of  the  Shenandoah  River.) 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  429 

tureen  of  the  master  armorer  who  is  taking  dinner  in  the 
basement,  which  is  a  sort  of  antipodean  attic."  4 

While  nature  has  thus  distinguished  the  town,  its  desira 
bility  as  a  military  position  is  not  enhanced  by  its  surround 
ings,  for,  as  was  shown  later,  in  the  Civil  War,  it  lies  at  the 
mercy  of  any  force  which  scales  the  Loudon  or  Maryland 
Heights;  from  them  it  is  easy  for  sharpshooters  to  pick  off 
any  one  in  the  Ferry.  In  the  rear,  to  defend  it  successfully, 
the  enemy  must  be  prevented  from  reaching  Bolivar  Heights. 
In  1859,  the  chief  approaches  to  Harper's  Ferry  were  by  way 
of  a  bridge  over  the  Shenandoah,  and  by  a  covered  bridge 
from  Maryland  across  the  Potomac  which  was  used  both  by 
the  railroad  and  by  vehicular  traffic.  The  danger  to  any  raid 
ing  force  would  come  from  losing  possession  of  these  bridges, 
in  which  case  the  sole  means  of  escape  would  be  by  swimming 
the  rivers  or  climbing  up  through  the  town  toward  Bolivar 
Heights,  in  the  direction  of  Charlestown,*  eight  miles  away 
by  road,  then,  as  now,  the  county  seat  of  Jefferson  County, 
and  an  important  place. 

It  was  half-past  ten  when  Kagi  and  Stevens,  as  advance 
guard,  entered  the  Maryland  bridge  and  made  William  Wil 
liams,  the  watchman,  their  prisoner.  He  thought  it  a  good 
joke,  for  he  recognized  Brown  and  Cook  in  the  group  that 
followed ;  but  he  was  soon  made  to  realize  that  here  was  grim 
earnest,  and,  like  the  others  captured  early  in  the  raid,  was 
utterly  dumfounded.5  On  crossing  the  bridge,  the  raiders 
next  came  to  the  combined  railroad  station  and  hotel  of  Har 
per's  Ferry,  known  as  the  Wager  House.  On  the  left  side, 
on  the  bank  of  the  Shenandoah,  was  a  low  saloon  known  as 
the  Gait  House,  and  straight  ahead  were  the  buildings  of 
the  arsenal  in  which  the  completed  guns  were  stored.  To  the 
right,  running  along  the  Potomac  for  six  hundred  yards  or 
more,  extended  the  shops  of  the  armory,  protected  on  the 
river-side  by  the  railroad  track,  but  always  in  danger  from 
freshets  at  high  water.  Of  the  armory  proper,  the  first  build 
ing  was  the  watch-room  and  fire-engine  house,  in  which  Brown 
and  his  men  were  finally  penned  up;  it  was  but  sixty  yards 
or  so  from  the  ends  of  both  bridges.  Indeed,  the  whole  tra 
gedy  which  ensued  was  within  an  extraordinarily  small  space. 
*  The  modern  spelling  is  Charles  Town. 


430  JOHN  BROWN 

Beyond  the  fire-engine  house  were  the  forging  shop,  the  ma 
chine  shop,  the  stocking  shop,  the  "component  department" 
and  the  rolling-mills  of  the  arsenal.  About  half  a  mile  dis 
tant,  on  the  Shenandoah,  were  what  is  known  as  the  rifle 
works,  separate  shops  in  which  sixty  expert  gunsmiths  turned 
out  weapons  for  the  regular  army.6  Contrary  to  the  custom 
of  the  present  day,  the  arsenals  of  the  government  in  1859 
were  cared  for  by  civilians,  not  by  regularly  enlisted  sol 
diers  of  the  Ordnance  Corps;  there  were,  in  fact,  but  a  few 
watchmen  on  duty  at  night  at  Harper's  Ferry.  John  Brown, 
therefore,  had  nothing  to  fear  from  any  armed  guard  on  the 
spot.  Hence,  he  confidently  hoped  to  retire  to  the  mountains 
before  catching  sight  of  a  soldier  of  the  regular  army  or  of 
the  militia,  —  by  no  means  an  unjustifiable  expectation.  For 
Harper's  Ferry  and  the  surrounding  country  knew  nothing  of 
war  or  its  alarums.  It  had  never  seen  belligerent  men  with 
guns  in  their  hands  since  Revolutionary  days,  and  in  October, 
1859,  it  no  more  feared  an  armed  invasion  than  does  the 
quietest  and  sleepiest  New  England  village  to-day.  Its  citi 
zens  would  as  soon  have  expected  a  cataclysm  of  nature  as 
bloodshed  in  their  streets. 

After  crossing  the  bridge,  the  second  prisoner  was  taken. 
He  was  another  watchman,  Daniel  Whelan,  who  held  the 
armory  gate.  Not  even  when  the  raiders  clapped  their  guns 
to  his  breast  and  told  him  to  give  up  the  key,  would  he  be 
unfaithful  to  his  trust.  Here  the  crow-bar  in  the  wagon  found 
its  first  usefulness;  it  was  but  a  minute  before  entrance  was 
forced.  "One  fellow,"  said  Whelan,  "took  me;  they  all  gath 
ered  about  me  and  looked  in  my  face ;  I  was  nearly  scared  to 
death  for  so  many  guns  about;  I  did  not  know  the  minute 
or  the  hour  I  should  drop ;  they  told  me  to  be  very  quiet  and 
still  and  make  no  noise  or  else  they  would  put  me  to  eternity." 
John  Brown  with  two  men  held  the  big  gate.  To  Whelan  and 
Williams  the  leader  said :  "  I  came  here  from  Kansas,  and  this 
is  a  slave  State;  I  want  to  free  all  the  negroes  in  this  State;  I 
have  possession  now  of  the  United  States  armory,  and  if  the 
citizens  interfere  with  me  I  must  only  burn  the  town  and  have 
blood."  7  Then  he  crossed  the  street  and,  unopposed,  took 
possession  of  the  arsenal  buildings,  Albert  Hazlett  and  Edwin 
Coppoc  being  made  the  arsenal's  temporary  garrison.  Grad- 


HIGH   TREASON   IN   VIRGINIA 

ually,  other  prisoners  came  in ;  there  were  two  or  three  young 
fellows  captured  on  the  street,  and  others  on  the  Shenandoah 
bridge.  Thence  Brown,  A.  D.  Stevens,  and  a  group  of  the 
raiders  proceeded  to  the  rifle  works,  captured  a  watchman 
there  and  put  John  H.  Kagi  and  John  A.  Copeland  in  posses 
sion,  Lewis  Sheridan  Leary  reinforcing  them  later.8 

'  Meanwhile,  the  commander-in-chief  had  despatched  a  raid 
ing  expedition  up  to  and  beyond  Bolivar  Heights.  John 
Brown  knew  well  the  value  of  the  dramatic  in  all  his  under 
takings,  and  understood  what  would  appeal  to  the  popular 
imagination.  There  lived,  five  miles  from  Harper's  Ferry,  a 
Colonel  Lewis  W.  Washington,  a  great-grandnephew  of  the 
first  President,  and  like  him  a  gentleman-farmer  and  slave 
owner.  In  Colonel  Washington's  possession  was  a  pistol  pre 
sented  to  General  Washington  by  Lafayette,  as  well  as  a  sword, 
now  in  possession  of  the  State  of  New  York,  which,  according 
to  unverified  legend,  was  the  gift  of  Frederick  the  Great  to 
George  Washington.  John  E.  Cook  had  seen  these  weapons  in 
Colonel  Washington's  home,  and  John  Brown,  beginner  of  a 
new  American  revolution,  wished  to  strike  his  first  blow  for  the 
freedom  of  a  race  with  them  in  his  hands.  It  was  at  midnight 
that  Colonel  Washington  was  awakened  by  four  armed  men, 
who  stood  at  his  chamber  door  with  a  burning  flambeau 
and  notified  him  that  he  was  their  prisoner.9  Had  the  Heav 
ens  fallen,  he  could  not  have  been  more  astonished  than  by 
the  appearance  of  Osborn  P.  Anderson,  who  with  Stevens, 
Tidd,  Cook,  Leary  and  Shields  Green,  formed  this  raiding 
party.  One  act  of  his  captors  in  particular  must  have  rankled 
with  him.  By  John  Brown's  specific  instructions,  Stevens 
compelled  Colonel  Washington  to  hand  over  the  illustri 
ous  Frederick's  sword  to  the  negro  Anderson, —  another  bit 
of  that  symbolism  by  which  Brown  set  such  store.10  Then 
Colonel  Washington  was  led  forth  to  his  own  carriage ;  behind 
it  stood  his  four-horse  farm-wagon,  into  which  climbed  the 
raiders  and  Washington's  slaves,  who  were  told  to  come  and 
fight  for  their  liberty,  and  the  caravan  set  off  for  Harper's 
Ferry.  On  its  way  there  was  a  stop  at  a  neighbor's,  Mr. 
John  H.  Allstadt's,  where  much  the  same  scene  was  enacted. 
The  crash  of  a  fence-rail  against  the  front  door  woke  the 
house  to  cries  of  murder  from  the  women  of  the  family. 


432  JOHN    BROWN 

"  Presently,"  recalls  Mr.  John  Thomas  Allstadt,  then  a  boy 
of  eighteen, 

"they  led  my  father  and  me  outside.  There  we  saw  Colonel  Wash 
ington,  sitting  in  his  own  team.  They  put  us,  my  father  and  me, 
on  the  seat  of  Colonel  Washington's  four-horse  wagon.  In  the  body, 
behind  us,  our  six  negroes  and  Colonel  Washington's  quota  stood 
close  packed.  As  we  drove  inside  the  Armory  yard,  there  stood  an  old 
man.  'This,'  said  Stevens,  by  way  of  introduction,  'is  John  Brown.' 
'Osawatomie  Brown  of  Kansas,'  added  Brown.  Then  he  handed  out 
pikes  to  our  negroes,  telling  them  to  guard  us  carefully,  to  prevent 
our  escape.  'Keep  these  white  men  inside,'  said  he.  There  were  no 
other  local  negroes  within  the  enclosure,  save  Colonel  Washington's 
and  ours.  We  arrived  at  the  Armory  just  about  daybreak.  We  were 
not  taken  inside  the  building  until  several  men  had  fallen.  In  the 
interval  we  were  permitted  to  walk  up  and  down  before  the  engine 
house,  east  and  west,  but  not  on  the  east  side,  on  which  were  the 
gates."11 

Said  John  Brown  to  Lewis  Washington,  as  he  greeted  him 
at  the  engine-house  at  the  armory: 

"  I  think,  after  a  while,  possibly,  I  shall  be  enabled  to  release  you, 
but  only  on  the  condition  of  getting  your  friends  to  send  in  a  negro 
man  as  a  ransom.  I  shall  be  very  attentive  to  you,  sir,  for  I  may  get 
the  worst  of  it  in  my  first  encounter,  and  if  so,  your  life  is  worth 
as  much  as  mine.  I  shall  be  very  particular  to  pay  attention  to 
you.  My  particular  reason  for  taking  you  first  was  that,  as  the  aid 
to  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  I  knew  you  would  endeavor  to  perform 
your  duty,  and  perhaps  you  would  have  been  a  troublesome  cus 
tomer  to  me;  and,  apart  from  that,  I  wanted  you  particularly  for 
the  moral  effect  it  would  give  our  cause  having  one  of  your  name, 
as  a  prisoner."  12 

Meanwhile,  as  the  night  had  worn  on,  the  town  had  become 
aroused.  Patrick  Higgins,  the  night  watchman  of  the  Mary 
land  bridge,  who  came  to  relieve  William  Williams,  was  shot 
at  for  striking  Oliver  Brown  and  refusing  to  surrender.  The 
bullet  ploughed  a  furrow  in  his  scalp,  but  did  not  prevent  his 
seeking  safety  in  the  Wager  House  and  helping  to  give  the 
alarm.  At  1.25  in  the  morning,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  train 
bound  from  the  West  to  Baltimore  arrived  in  Harper's  Ferry 
and  attempted  to  cross  the  bridge.  As  it  was  in  the  act  of 
starting  on,  Patrick  Higgins  came  up  to  Conductor  Phelps 
and  told  his  story  of  being  attacked  by  men  carrying  rifles. 


HIGH   TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  433 

The  engineer  and  baggage-master  went  forward  to  investigate, 
but  returned  immediately  on  being  fired  at  and  seeing  the 
muzzles  of  four  rifles  resting  on  a  railing;  at  once  the  train 
backed  away.13  It  was  at  this  moment  that  Shephard  Hay- 
ward,  a  free  negro  who  acted  as  baggage-master  of  the  station, 
went  around  the  corner  of  the  hotel  and  on  toward  the  bridge, 
to  look  for  the  missing  watchman.  He,  too,  received  a  com 
mand  to  halt,  but  it  probably  meant  as  little  to  him  as  it  had 
to  Patrick  Higgins,*  and  as  he  turned  to  retrace  his  steps  to 
the  station,  a  bullet  passed  through  his  body  a  little  below  his 
heart.  He  lay  in  agony  in  the  railroad  station  until  his  death, 
nearly  twelve  hours  later,  attended  at  times  by  a  doctor  and 
Patrick  Higgins,  who  brought  him  water. 

This  was,  indeed,  an  ill  omen  for  the  army  of  liberation. 
The  first  man  to  fall  at  their  hands  was  neither  a  slave-owner, 
nor  a  defender  of  slavery,  nor  one  who  suffered  by  it,  but  a 
highly  respected,  well-to-do  colored  man,  in  full  possession 
of  his  liberty  and  favored  with  the  respect  of  the  white  com 
munity.  He  had  not  even  offered  to  resist.14  And  so  at  the 
very  first  moment  was  violated  a  final  charge  which  John 
Brown  gave  to  his  men  before  he  ordered  them  to  take  the 
road.  "And  now,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  "let  me  impress  this 
one  thing  on  your  minds;  you  all  know  how  dear  life  is  to 
you,  and  how  dear  your  lives  are  to  your  friends;  and  in  re 
membering  that,  consider  that  the  lives  of  others  are  as  dear 
to  them  as  yours  are  to  you:  do  not,  therefore,  take  the  life 
of  anyone  if  you  can  possibly  avoid  it;  but  if  it  is  necessary 
to  take  life  in  order  to  save  your  own,  then  make  sure  work 
of  it."  15 

(  As  for  the  train,  it  remained  there  until  daylight,  although 
Conductor  Phelps  received  word  at  three  o'clock  from  Brown 
through  a  prisoner  that  he  might  proceed;  he  would  not 
trust  his  train  across  the  bridge  until  daylight.16  Then  John 
Brown  let  him  go  —  to  spread  abroad  the  tidings  of  what  had 
happened.  At  7.05  A.  M.,  Phelps  arrived  at  Monocacy  and 
telegraphed  to  W.  P.  Smith,  the  master  of  transportation 
at  Baltimore,  the  story  of  the  night:  that  he  and  his  baggage- 

*  lcNow,"  says  Patrick  Higgins,  "I  did  n't  know  what  'Halt'  mint  then  any 
more  than  a  hog  knows  about  a  holiday."  He  still  lives  at  Sandy  Hook. 


434  JOHN  BROWN 

master  had  been  fired  at,  that  Hayward  had  been  shot,  and 
that  the  insurrectionists  were  one  hundred  and  fifty  strong. 

"They  say,"  his  despatch  went  on,  "they  have  come  to  free  the 
slaves  and  intend  to  do  it  at  all  hazards.  The  leader  of  those  men 
requested  me  to  say  to  you  that  this  is  the  last  train  that  shall  pass 
the  bridge  either  East  or  West.  If  it  is  attempted  it  will  be  at  the 
peril  of  the  lives  of  those  having  them  in  charge.  ...  It  has  been 
suggested  you  had  better  notify  the  Secretary  of  War  at  once.  The 
telegraph  wires  are  cut  East  and  West  of  Harper's  Ferry  and  this 
is  the  first  station  that  I  could  send  a  dispatch  from."  17 

But  so  extraordinary  a  message  did  not  find  credence  in 
those  piping  times  of  peace.  The  master  of  transportation 
telegraphed  dubiously  at  nine  o'clock:  "Your  dispatch  is 
evidently  exaggerated  and  written  under  excitement.  Why 
should  our  trains  be  stopped  by  Abolitionists,  and  how  do 
you,}cnow  they  are  such  and  that  they  numbered  one  hun 
dred  or  more?  What  is  their  object?  Let  me  know  at  once 
before  we  proceed  to  extremities."  "My  dispatch  was  not 
exaggerated,"  replied  Conductor  Phelps  from  Ellicott's  Mills 
at  eleven  o'clock,  "neither  was  it  written  under  excitement 
as  you  suppose.  I  have  not  made  it  half  as  bad  as  it  is.  ... 
I  will  call  at  your  office  immediately  on  my  arrival  and  tell 
you  all."  Before  this  reply  was  received,  the  president  of 
the  railroad,  John  W.  Garrett,  had  seen  the  conductor's  des 
patch,  and  lost  no  time  in  acting  upon  it.  At  half-past  ten 
he  had  telegraphed  to  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
to  Governor  Wise,  of  Virginia,  and  to  Major-General  George 
H.  Stewart,  commanding  the  First  Light  Division,  Maryland 
Volunteers,  in  Baltimore,  that  an  insurrection  was  in  pro 
gress  in  Harper's  Ferry,  in  which  free  negroes  and  whites 
were  engaged.  Thus  the  first  alarm  was  given  hours  before 
it  should  have  been.  Moreover,  from  Monocacy  word  had 
reached  Frederick,  a  short  distance  away,  and  by  ten  o'clock 
the  military  company  of  that  place  was  under  arms. 

Unfortunately  for  John  Brown's  belief  that  he  had  hours 
of  immunity  before  he  need  think  of  beginning  his  retreat, 
Harper's  Ferry  had  its  Paul  Revere.  He  was  John  D.  Starry, 
a  physician  of  the  town,  who  lived  but  a  stone's  throw  from 
the  Wager  House.  The  shot  which  mortally  wounded  Hay- 
ward  aroused  him,  as  did  the  injured  man's  cry  of  distress.18 


HIGH   TREASON   IN   VIRGINIA  435 

He  went  at  once  to  Hayward's  side,  only  to  find  that  he 
was  beyond  help.  He  heard  the  firing  on  the  street  which 
made  the  conductor  of  the  train  beat  a  retreat,  but  Dr.  Starry 
himself  was  not  to  be  frightened.  He  stood  at  the  corner 
of  the  station  and  watched  three  of  the  raiders  approaching ; 
then  he  notified  the  alarmed  passengers  who  had  crowded  into 
the  waiting-room  that  he  would  follow  the  strangers  into  the 
armory  and  find  out  what  it  was  all  about.  He  did  so,  was 
challenged,  and  returned  to  the  station  without  the  infor 
mation  he  desired.  Later,  he  exchanged  words  with  the  raid 
ers  who  held  the  bridge,  quite  unmolested,  although  other 
citizens  were  arrested  on  sight.  This  was  characteristic  of 
the  haphazard  character  of  the  raid  and  the  lack  of  specific 
instructions.  Dr.  Starry  devoted  the  rest  of  the  night  to 
watching;  saw  Colonel  Washington's  four-horse  wagon  arrive, 
and  then,  at  five  minutes  after  five  o'clock,  saw  it  drive  over 
the  Maryland  bridge  in  charge  of  John  E.  Cook  and  disap 
pear  on  the  other  bank ;  three  men  with  pikes  in  their  hands 
were  in  the  wagon  and  two  with  rifles  marched  alongside. 
At  daylight  he  could  stand  it  no  longer;  he  saddled  his  horse, 
rode  first  to  the  residence  of  A.  M.  Kitzmiller,  who  was  in 
charge  of  the  arsenal  in  the  absence  of  the  superintendent, 
Mr.  Barbour,  and  aroused  him  and  a  number  of  other  officials 
and  workmen  with  the  story  of  the  night.  He  then  put  spurs 
to  his  horse  and  climbed  the  hill  to  Bolivar  Heights,  where  he 
again  awoke  some  sleepers.  Without  dismounting,  he  rode 
back  into  the  town,  going  straight  to  the  rifle  works,  where 
he  found  three  armed  men.  With  admirable  courage  he  rode 
to  within  twenty-five  or  thirty  paces  of  them.  As  they  did 
not  molest  him,  he  decided  to  take  charge  of  matters  and 
drive  the  invaders  out. 

He  lost  not  a  minute's  time,  for,  in  his  own  words: 

"I  went  back  to  the  hillside  then,  and  tried  to  get  the  citizens 
together,  to  see  what  we  could  do  to  get  rid  of  these  fellows.  They 
seemed  to  be  very  troublesome.  When  I  got  on  the  hill  I  learned  that 
they  had  shot  Boerley.  That  was  probably  about  7  o'clock.  Boerley 
was  an  Irishman  living  there,  a  citizen  of  the  town.  He  died  very 
soon  afterwards.  ...  I  had  ordered  the  Lutheran  church  bell  to  be 
rung  to  get  the  citizens  together  to  see  what  sort  of  arms  they  had ; 
I  found  one  or  two  squirrel  rifles  and  a  few  shot  guns ;  I  had  sent 
a  messenger  to  Charlestown  in  the  meantime  for  Captain  Rowan, 


436  JOHN  BROWN 

commander  of  a  volunteer  company  there:  I  also  sent  messengers 
to  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  to  stop  the  trains  coming  east 
and  not  let  them  approach  the  Ferry,  and  also  a  messenger  to  Shep- 
herdstown.  When  I  could  find  no  guns  fit  for  use,  and  learned  from 
the  operatives  and  foreman  at  the  armory  that  all  the  guns  that 
they  knew  of  were  in  the  arsenal  and  in  possession  of  these  men, 
I  thought  I  had  better  go  to  Charlestown  myself,  perhaps;  I  did 
so  and  hurried  Captain  Rowan  off.  When  I  returned  to  the  Ferry, 
I  found  that  the  citizens  had  gotten  some  guns  out  of  one  of  the 
workshops  —  guns  which  had  been  placed  there  to  keep  them  out  of 
the  high  water  —  and  were  pretty  well  armed.  I  assisted,  from  that 
time  until  some  time  in  the  night,  in  various  ways,  organizing  the 
citizens  and  getting  them  to  the  best  place  of  attack,  and  sometimes 
acting  professionally." 

Charlestown,  as  already  stated,  was  eight  miles  away. 
When  Dr.  Starry  reached  there  on  his  foam-flecked  horse, 
the  alarm  bells  were  being  rung,  and  from  bed  or  breakfast 
men  hurried  to  the  court-house,  the  centre  of  the  town,  to 
learn  that  Abolitionists  and  slave-stealers  were  murdering 
innocent  men  in  the  streets  of  Harper's  Ferry.  What  the 
South  had  been  dreading  ever  since  the  Nat  Turner  insur 
rection  of  1831  had  come  to  pass:  there  was  another  servile 
uprising  in  the  land.  For  years  patrols  had  ridden  the  roads 
and  men  had  watched  of  night  lest  the  negroes  turn  upon 
their  masters.  It  was  an  ever-present  fear;  that  the  Abo 
litionists  wished  the  slaves  to  rise  and  kill  their  masters  in 
their  beds  was  a  belief  widely  held  in  the  South  and  often 
publicly  expressed,  and  no  happening  that  could  be  imagined 
contained  a  greater  possibility  of  horror  and  bloodshed.  But 
the  men  of  Charlestown  faltered  not  at  all,  now  that  the  long- 
dreaded  hour  had  come.  The  militia,  called  the  Jefferson 
Guards,  fell  into  line  ununiformed ;  and  then  boys  and  men, 
"  accoutred  as  they  were  "  with  muskets  or  rifles  or  squirrel- 
guns,  their  scant  ammunition  in  their  pockets,  formed  still 
another  company,  also  with  no  sign  of  a  uniform.  On  the 
moment,  the  new  company  chose  officers,  and  at  ten  o'clock 
both  companies  were  off  by  train  for  their  first  active  ser 
vice.19  But  not  their  last,  for  in  this  column  were  brave  men 
who  fought  from  1861  to  1865  with  the  indomitable  courage 
of  the  Confederacy,  even  when  their  homes  were  in  ruins  or 
in  the  enemy's  hands,  their  clothes  in  tatters,  their  feet  bare. 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  437 

Uniforms  were  needless  in  1859  or  1865,  when  the  martial 
spirit  was  so  high  and  the  sense  of  duty  so  keen.  It  was  some 
thing  that  John  Brown  had  not  counted  on,  nor  would  any 
one  else  in  his  place  have  thought  it  possible;  not  now,  fifty 
years  later,  would  it  be  possible  to  get  men  as  quickly  on  the 
spot  again.  An  example  of  the  natural  military  talent  of  the 
South,  it  should  by  itself  have  silenced,  a  year  and  a  half 
later,  those  who  thought  to  march  from  Washington  to  Rich 
mond  as  if  on  an  afternoon's  promenade.  And  the  Jefferson 
Guards,  besides  their  speed  of  assembly,  were  well  led,  for 
with  excellent  military  judgment  they  left  the  citizens'  com 
pany  on  Bolivar  Heights,  and,  crossing  the  Potomac  by  boat, 
a  mile  or  more  above  the  arsenal,  and  then  the  Chesapeake 
and  Ohio  Canal,  re-formed  upon  its  bank,  on  Maryland  soil, 
and  marched  down  to  the  bridge  over  the  same  road  over 
which  the  raiders  had  come  from  Kennedy  Farm  the  pre 
ceding  night.20 

While  the  Charlestown  military  was  hurrying  to  the  scene 
with  such  astonishing  promptitude,  there  had  been,  after 
the  departure  of  the  train  and  the  killing  of  the  unfortunate 
Mr.  Boerly,  for  a  time  a  cessation  of  hostilities  in  Harper's 
Ferry.  }  During  this  interval,  John  Brown  ordered  and  had 
served  from  the  Wager  House,  breakfast  for  forty-five  per 
sons,  which,  however,  neither  he  nor  Mr.  Allstadt  nor  Colo 
nel  Washington  would  touch,  —  all  three  fearing  that  the 
employees  of  the  Wager  House  had  poisoned  the  food.21 
Throughout  this  long  day,  John  Brown  and  most  of  his  men 
fought  without  a  morsel  to  eat.  The  prisoners  had  rapidly 
increased  in  number,  for,  as  the  master  mechanics  and  work 
men  approached  the  gates,  they  were  quickly  bagged,  until 
such  time  as  the  town  was  thoroughly  alarmed.  Estimates 
of  the  number  of  prisoners  finally  confined  in  the  watch- 
house  have  gone  as  high  as  a  hundred  and  as  low  as  thirty; 
the  latter  number  is  more  nearly  correct.!  Between  nine  and 
ten  o'clock,  Leeman,  who  had  gone  with  John  E.  Cook  and 
Colonel  Washington's  wagon  toward  the  Kennedy  Farm, 
had  arrived  with  a  prisoner,  Terence  Byrne,  a  farmer  and 
slave-owner  who  lived  in  Maryland,  about  three  miles  from 
Harper's  Ferry.  With  them  returned  William  Thompson, 
whom  Brown  had  sent  to  notify  Owen  Brown,  at  the  school- 


438  ,  JOHN  BROWN 

house  near  the  Kennedy  Farm,  that  all  was  going  well,  —  a 
message  soon  to  be  singularly  misleading.22 

Throughout  the  early  morning,  John  Brown  received  urgent 
messages  from  his  able  lieutenant,  Kagi,  at  the  rifle  works, 
begging  him  to  leave  the  town  at  once;  For  him  the  inde 
cision  of  Brown  was  shortly  to  be  fatal.  Just  why  it  was  that 
the  commander-in-chief  let  slip  the  golden  hours  when  escape 
was  possible  will  never  be  wholly  explained.  He  himself 
averred  that  his  thought  for  his  prisoners  had  much  to  do 
with  it.  There  is  no  doubt,  too,  that  he  still  expected  the 
negroes  to  rise  in  numbers  and  swell  his  force  to  irresistible 
proportions.  The  lack  of  a  carefully  thought  out  programme 
told  as  well.  Though  he  kept  perfectly  cool  and  clear-headed, 
he  proved  incapable  of  attempting  anything  aggressive,  and 
the  citizens  were  speedily  aware  that  the  raiders  were  on  the 
defensive.  Between  nine  and  ten  o'clock,  Brown  had  actually 
discussed  with  his  prisoners  negotiations  with  the  citizens 
looking  to  a  cessation  of  firing,  and  to  leaving  him  in  posses 
sion  of  the  armory.  A  brave  prisoner  named  Joseph  A.  Brua 
went  backward  and  forward  begging  the  citizens  not  to  shoot, 
as  they  endangered  the  lives  of  Colonel  Washington  and  the 
other  prisoners.23  But  soon  after  ten  o'clock  general  firing 
began. 

It  was  about  noon  that  the  Jefferson  Guards  reached  the 
Maryland  end  of  the  Potomac  bridge.  ^  They  quickly  drove 
from  it  Oliver  Brown  and  the  rest  of  the  guard,  and,  crossing, 
entered  the  Wager  House;  but  not  until  they  had  had  a  sharp 
exchange  of  volleys  with  such  of  the  raiders  as  John  Brown 
could  hastily  assemble.  In  this  rush  of  the  Jefferson  Guards, 
one  of  its  members  was  severely  wounded  in  the  left  arm 
and  crippled  for  life.24  But  the  purpose  of  the  movement 
was  achieved :  one  door  of  the  Harper's  Ferry  trap  was  closed, 
and  as  it  was  sprung,  communication  with  the  Kennedy 
Farm  was  cut  off.  The  strategy  of  Colonel  Jojm  T.  Gibson, 
of  Charlestown,  who,  as  Colonel  of  the  Fifty-fifth  Virginia 
Infantry,  commanded  both  companies,  or  of  Captain  Rowan, 
the  Mexican  War  veteran,  who  led  the  Jefferson  Guards, 
had  accomplished  far  more  than  its  originator  could  at  the 
moment  have  imagined. 

But  with  their  arrival  at  the  Wager  House,  the  initiative 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  439 

of  the  Charlestown  militia  ceased.  The  newly  formed  com 
pany  of  their  townsmen  had,  meanwhile,  come  down  from 
Bolivar  Heights  under  Captain  Botts  and  occupied  the  Gait 
House  and  the  Shenandoah  bridge,  while  a  detachment  under 
Captain  John  Avis  and  Richard  B.  Washington  took  pos 
session  of  some  houses  between  the  hill  and  the  arsenal,  from 
which  they  could  fire  readily  into  the  yard.25  They  had  hardly 
taken  their  places,  when  Mr.  Washington  shot  and  instantly 
killed  Dangerfield  Newby,  who,  with  William  Thompson  and 
Oliver  Brown,  had  been  driven  off  the  bridge  by  the  Jefferson 
Guards  and  was  fleeing  back  to  the  armory.26  Newby  was 
thus  the  first  to  die  of  John  Brown's  men,  and  with  him 
perished  the  hope  of  liberty  of  his  poor  slave  wife,  who 
so  ardently  longed  for  her  "dear  Dangerfield"  to  release  her 
and  her  brood  of  seven  slave  children.  John  Brown  was  now 
entirely  cut  off  from  his  three  men  in  the  rifle  works,  and 
from  Hazlett  and  Anderson,  the  guard  in  the  arsenal.  He  had 
left  at  this  hour  but  a  single  way  of  retreat,  —  through  the 
armory  buildings  under  the  hill,  — with  no  means  of  crossing 
the  Potomac  to  the  Maryland  shore. 

After  the  loss  of  the  Potomac  bridge  and  the  killing  of 
Newby,  whose  body  was  subjected  to  shocking  indignities,— 
his  ears  were  sliced  off  for  souvenirs,27 — -at  Brown's  request, 
a  prisoner  named  Cross  went  out  with  William  Thompson  to 
stop  the  firing,  with  the  sole  result  that  Thompson  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy.28  A  little  later,  Brown  despatched  another 
flag  of  truce  by  Stevens  and  Watson  Brown,  with  whom 
went  Mr.  Kitzmiller,  the  acting  superintendent  of  the  armory. 
If  the  citizens  understood  what  the  flag  meant,  they  did  not 
respect  it.  Stevens  fell,  shot  twice  by  George  W.  Chambers, 
a  saloon-keeper,  from  a  window  in  the  Gait  House,  the  slugs^ 
used  inflicting  terrible  wounds.29  Watson  Brown,  mortally 
wounded  a  moment  earlier  than  Stevens,  dragged  himself  back 
to  the  fire-engine  house,  where  his  father  had  now  assembled 
the  remnants  of  his  band,  the  slaves  he  had  armed,  and  eleven 
of  the  most  important  prisoners:  Washington;  the  Allstadts; 
Brua;  Byrne;  Benjamin  Mills,  the  master  armorer;  A.M.  Ball, 
the  master  machinist;  J.  E.  P.  Daingerfield,  the  paymaster's 
clerk,  and  others,  nearly  all  of  whom  testified  later  in  detail 
to  the  scenes  of  which  they  were  such  unwilling  witnesses. 


440  JOHN  BROWN 

The  remainder  of  the  prisoners  were  left  in  the  watch-room, 
which  comprised  a  third  of  the  fire-engine  house,  but  was  with 
out  a  communicating  door.  Unguarded  as  they  were,  these 
watch-room  prisoners  were  too  terrified  to  venture  out  until 
the  arrival  of  the  Martinsburg  company  in  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon.  In  sharp  contrast  to  their  inactivity  was  the  con 
duct  of  Mr.  Brua,  whose  humanitarian  spirit  made  him  volun 
teer  to  go  to  the  aid  of  Stevens  as  he  lay  bleeding  in  a  gutter. 
Thanks  to  him,  Stevens  was  carried  into  the  Wager  House 
and  given  medical  attention.30 

(  Mr.  Brua's  deed,  the  more  striking  because  he  again  re 
turned  to  take  his  place  as  a  prisoner,  has  unfortunately  been 
overlooked,  because  of  the  barbarities  attending  the  killing 
of  some  of  the  raiders.  For  instance,  the  death,  about  one 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  of  William  H.  Leeman,  the  youngest 
of  Brown's  men,  has  frequently  been  cited  to  prove  the  "sav 
agery"  which  the  raiders  encountered.  About  the  time  that 
Stevens  and  Watson  Brown  were  wounded,  Leeman  made  an 
attempt  from  the  upper  end  of  the  yard  to  escape  across  the 
Potomac,  a  little  above  the  bridge.  He  soon  found  himself 
under  such  a  heavy  fire  that  he  stopped  on  a  tiny  islet.  Ac 
cording  to  a  generally  accepted  story,  he  was  here  killed,  after 
he  had  surrendered,  by  a  citizen,  G.  A.  Schoppert,  who,  it  was 
alleged,  deliberately  placed  his  weapon  at  the  unarmed  eight 
een-year-old  boy's  head  before  shooting.  In  1900,  Mr.  Schop 
pert  made  an  affidavit  that  Leeman  had  a  pistol  and  a  knife 
when  killed,  and  that  he  refused  to  surrender  when  called  on 
to  do  so.  In  his  assertion  that  this  was  a  justifiable  killing,  Mr. 
Schoppert  had  the  support  of  Colonel  J.  T.  Gibson,  an  eye 
witness.  It  remains,  however,  a  melancholy  fact  that  the  lad's 
body,  lying  for  hours  in  plain  sight  on  the  rock,  was  riddled 
and  mutilated  repeatedly  by  whole  companies,  as  well  as  by 
individuals  who  found  the  dead  Abolitionist  an  attractive 
target,  particularly  from  the  bridge.31  Unfortunately  for  the 
troops,  the  bars  at  the  Wager  House  and  the  Gait  House  were 
not  affected  by  the  street-fighting  that  went  on,  and  contin 
ued  to  dispense  liquor,  with  disastrous  results  to  the  morale 
of  the  troops  as  the  hours  passed.82 

About  two  o'clock  the  death  of  George  W.  Turner,  a  slave 
holder,  a  farmer  of  means  and  prominence  in  the  vicinity  of 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  441 

Harper's  Ferry,  still  further  inflamed  the  citizens.  A  graduate 
of  West  Point,  who  had  seen  service  in  the  Seminole  War  in 
Florida,33  he  rode  to  town  carrying  his  shot-gun,  and  was  shot 
in  the  neck  and  instantly  killed.  According  to  one  narrative, 
he  was  in  the  act  of  firing  on  two  of  the  raiders  when  a  bullet 
from  them  struck  him ;  it  was  also  related  that  he  was  killed 
while  talking  to  a  traveller  who  had  strayed  in  from  one  of 
the  delayed  Baltimore  and  Ohio  trains.84  In  any  event,  his 
death  added  greatly  to  the  excitement  of  the  Harper's  Fer- 
rians.  But  it  was  the  shooting  of  the  mayor  of  the  town,  Fon 
taine  Beckham,  which  roused  the  citizens  of  Harper's  Ferry 
to  the  highest  pitch  of  indignation.  Mr.  Beckham,  the  agent 
of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  at  Harper's  Ferry  for  the 
twenty-five  years  since  its  opening,  had  been  a  magistrate 
in  Jefferson  County  for  an  even  longer  period.  Sincerely  at 
tached  to  his  helper,  Hayward,  and  much  agitated  by  his 
death,  which  occurred  about  four  o'clock,  Mayor  Beckham,  in 
his  extreme  nervousness,  several  times  ventured  out  on  the 
railroad  in  order  to  observe  what  was  going  on,  though  warned 
not  to  do  so.  From  the  engine  house  it  looked  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  get  a  favorable  position  from  which  to  shoot.  To 
this  Mr.  John  Thomas  Allstadt  testifies,  for  he  was  near 
Edwin  Coppoc  when  the  latter  fired  :  35 

"Now  Mr.  Beckham  went  behind  the  water  tank  and  began  peering 
around  its  corner,  as  it  might  be  to  take  aim.  '  If  he  keeps  on  peeking, 
I'm  going  to  shoot,'  said  Coppoc,  from  his  seat  in  the  doorway.  I 
stood  close  by  him.  Mr.  Beckham  peeked  again  and  Coppoc  fired, 
but  missed.  'Don't  fire,  man,  for  God's  sake!  they'll  shoot  in  here 
and  kill  us  all,'  shrieked  the  prisoners  from  behind.  Some  were 
laughing,  others  overwhelmed  with  fear.  But  Coppoc  was  already 
firing  again.  This  shot  killed  Beckham.  Undoubtedly  he  would  not 
have  been  fired  upon  but  for  his  equivocal  appearance.  Coppoc  fired 
no  more  from  the  watch-house;  in  fact,  no  one  remained  in  sight. 
But  Brown's  son,  Oliver,  sitting  in  the  partly  open  engine-house 
door,  spied  someone  peeping  over  the  stone  wall  of  the  trestle  in  the 
act  of  sighting  a  gun.  Young  Brown  instantly  took  aim ;  but  even  as 
he  was  in  the  act  of  firing,  the  other's  shot  struck  him  —  a  mortal 
wound  that  gave  horrible  pain." 

The  unarmed  mayor  died  instantly,  and  his  death  was  all 
that  was  needed  to  incite  the  now  half-drunken  and  uncon 
trolled  crowd  around  the  Wager  House  to  the  worst  killing  of 


442  JOHN  BROWN 

the  day.  William  Thompson,  with  the  wounded  Stevens,  was 
now  a  captive  in  the  hotel.  Mad  with  the  desire  to  revenge 
Beckham's  death,*  the  mob,  headed  by  George  W.  Chambers, 
the  saloon-keeper,  and  Harry  Hunter,  of  Charlestown,  at 
tempted  to  make  way  with  him  in  the  hotel  itself.  A  brief 
respite  was  secured  to  Thompson  by  a  Miss  Christine  Fouke, 
who  begged  that  his  life  be  spared,  from  the  mixed  motive, 
as  she  afterwards  explained,  of  a  desire  to  have  the  law  take 
its  course  and  to  save  the  house  from  becoming  the  scene  of 
an  outrage!36  What  happened  then  was  narrated  by  Harry 
Hunter  during  John  Brown's  trial,  in  answer  to  a  question 
from  his  father,  Andrew  Hunter,  the  special  prosecutor  on 
behalf  of  the  State: 

"After  Mr.  Beckham,  who  was  my  grand-uncle,  was  shot,  I  was 
much  exasperated,  and  started  with  Mr.  Chambers  to  the  room 
where  the  second  Thompson  was  confined,  with  the  purpose  of 
shooting  him.  We  found  several  persons  in  the  room,  and  had 
leveled  our  guns  at  him,  when  Mrs.  Fouke's  sister  threw  herself 
before  him,  and  begged  us  to  leave  him  to  the  laws.  We  then  caught 
hold  of  him,  and  dragged  him  out  by  the  throat,  he  saying:  'Though 
you  may  take  my  life,  80,000,000  f  will  arise  up  to  avenge  me,  and 
carry  out  my  purpose  of  giving  liberty  to  the  slaves.'  We  carried 
him  out  to  the  bridge,  and  two  of  us,  leveling  our  guns  in  this  mo 
ment  of  wild  exasperation,  fired,  and  before  he  fell,  a  dozen  or  more 
balls  were  buried  in  him;  we  then  threw  his  body  off  the  trestle- 
work,  and  returned  to  the  bridge  to  bring  out  the  prisoner  Stevens, 
and  serve  him  in  the  same  way;  we  found  him  suffering  from  his 
wounds,  and  probably  dying;  we  concluded  to  spare  him,  and  start 
after  others,  and  shoot  all  we  could  find.  I  had  just  seen  my  loved 
uncle  and  best  friend  I  ever  had,  shot  down  by  those  villainous 
Abolitionists,  and  felt  justified  in  shooting  any  that  I  could  find;  I 
felt  it  my  duty,  and  I  have  no  regrets."  37 

William  Thompson  was  shot  by  Chambers  and  Hunter  with 
their  revolvers  at  his  head,  and  thrust  through  the  open  space 
between  the  roadway  and  the  side  of  the  bridge.  As  he  lay 

*  Mr.  Beckham's  friendliness  to  the  negro  appears  from  the  fact  that  at  the  time 
of  his  death  he  was  aiding  one,  Isaac  Gilbert,  to  purchase  the  freedom  of  his  wife 
and  three  children.  As  if  foreseeing  a  sudden  death,  the  mayor  had  made  a  will 
insuring  the  freedom  of  these  four  slaves,  whom  he  had  purchased  in  order  to 
facilitate  their  liberation.  See  Will  Book  No.  16,  p.  142,  Jefferson  County  Court 
Records,  Charlestown,  West  Virginia. 

f  Other  reports  quote  Thompson  as  having  said  "80,000." 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  443 

in  the  shallow  water  below,  he,  too,  was  riddled  with  bullets. 
The  body,  says  a  local  historian,  "  could  be  seen  for  a  day  or 
two  after,  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  river,  with  his  ghastly 
face  still  exhibiting  his  fearful  death  agony."38  Making  all 
due  allowance  for  the  naturally  intense  indignation  aroused 
by  the  killing  of  so  universally  beloved  a  man  as  Mayor 
Beckham,  and  for  the  horrors  of  the  day,  the  killing  of  Thomp 
son  was  none  the  less  a  disgrace  to  the  State  of  Virginia.  It 
loses  nothing  of  its  barbarity  with  the  lapse  of  years.  It  is  a 
pleasure,  however,  to  record  that  the  best  public  sentiment  of 
Harper's  Ferry  and  Charlestown  has  always  condemned  the 
act.  This  crime  must  also  in  part  be  offset  by  Brua's  readi 
ness  to  risk  his  life  on  behalf  of  Stevens,  and  by  other  high- 
minded  acts  on  the  part  of  the  citizens.  Yet  it  remains  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  kindliness  and  courtesy  with  which 
John  Brown  treated  his  prisoners,  in  keeping  with  the  dictates 
of  the  Chatham  Constitution  and  with  his  own  character. 
This  generous  treatment  was  freely  acknowledged  by  his 
prisoners,  one  of  whom,  J.  E.  P.  Daingerfield,  declined  to 
attend  John  Brown's  execution,  because  "he  had  made  me  a 
prisoner,  but  had  spared  my  life  and  that  of  other  gentlemen 
in  his  power;  and  when  his  sons  were  shot  down  beside  him, 
almost  any  other  man  similarly  situated  would  have  exacted 
life  for  life."  39 

Just  after  Mr.  Beckham's  death,  there  arrived,  to  add  to 
the  excitement,  a  sturdy  Martinsburg  company,  composed 
largely  of  employees  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad. 
Headed  by  Captain  E.  G.  Alburtis,  they  very  nearly  ended  the 
conflict,  for  they  boldly  marched  through  the  armory  yard 
from  the  rear,  thus  cutting  off  Brown's  only  remaining  avenue 
of  escape,  and  engaged  the  raiders  at  close  range,  driving  them 
into  the  engine  house,  during  which  manoeuvre  the  company 
lost  eight  of  its  men  by  wounds.  "During  the  fight,"  Captain 
Alburtis  narrated  afterwards, 

"we  found  in  the  room  adjoining  the  engine-house  some  thirty  or 
forty  prisoners  who  had  been  captured  and  confined  by  the  outlaws. 
The  windows  were  broken  open  by  our  party,  and  these  men  es 
caped.  The  whole  of  the  outlaws  were  now  driven  into  the  engine- 
house,  and  owing  to  the  great  number  of  wounded  requiring  our 
care,  and  not  being  supported  by  the  other  companies  as  we  ex- 


444  JOHN  BROWN 

pected,  we  were  obliged  to  return.  Had  the  other  companies  come 
up,  we  could  have  taken  the  engine-house  then.  Immediately  after 
we  drew  off,  there  was  a  flag  of  truce  sent  out  to  propose  terms, 
which  were  that  they  should  be  permitted  to  retire  across  the  river 
with  their  arms,  and,  I  think,  proceed  as  far  as  some  lock  on  the 
canal,  there  to  release  their  prisoners.  These  terms  were  not  acceded 
to,  and  having  understood  that  the  United  States  marines  and  a 
number  of  troops  from  Baltimore  were  on  their  way,  nothing  fur 
ther  was  done  except  to  establish  guards  all  around  to  prevent  the 
desperadoes  from  escaping.  We  had  a  small  piece  of  cannon,  which 
we  proposed  to  bring  to  bear  on  the  engine-house,  but  were  directed 
not  to  do  so  on  account  of  endangering  the  prisoners." 40 

These  captives  were  later  a  convenient  excuse  to  explain 
the  militia's  shortcomings.  Immediately  after  the  arrival  of 
the  Martinsburg  company,  other  troops  began  to  pour  in. 
Itself,  like  the  second  Charlestown  company,  organized  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  the  Martinsburg  organization  was  fol 
lowed  by  two  Shepherdstown,  Virginia,  militia  companies, 
theHamtramck  Guards  and  the  Shepherds  town  Troop,  which, 
however,  accomplished  but  little.  At  dusk  three  companies 
from  Frederick,  Maryland,  appeared;  they  were  the  first  uni 
formed  troops  to  report.41  They,  too,  added  to  the  noise  and 
confusion  of  the  streets,  but  were  of  little  or  no  avail.  For 
all  practical  purposes,  John  Brown  and  his  handful  of  men 
had  beaten  off  the  several  hundred  armed  citizens  and  mili 
tia  who  had  come  to  capture  him,  living  or  dead.  Later  in 
the  evening  a  Winchester  company  arrived,  as  did  five  Bal 
timore  militia  companies,  which  did  not  enter  the  town  from 
Sandy  Hook  until  morning.42  Governor  Wise  and  Company 
F  of  Richmond  arrived  five  hours  after  the  engine  house  was 
taken.* 

The  record  of  the  tragedies  of  the  iyth  of  October  at 
Harper's  Ferry  is  not  complete  with  the  violent  deaths  of 
Beckham  and  William  Thompson.  On  the  Shenandoah,  John 
Brown's  outposts  in  the  rifle  works  were  slain  or  captured  at 
about  the  same  hour  that  the  arsenal  garrison  was  finally 
driven  into  the  engine  house.  Kagi's  early  morning  requests 
that  the  town  be  evacuated  having  met  with  no  consideration 
at  John  Brown's  hands,  he  and  his  men,  hungry,  isolated  and 
menaced  by  more  and  more  armed  men,  continued  to  obey 
orders  and  stick  to  their  posts  in  true  soldierly  fashion.  But 


r™"      ;  ,' 

i '        ,) 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  445 

the  energetic  Dr.  Starry  was  mindful  of  their  exposed  and 
isolated  position,  and  the  opportunity  it  offered. 

"I  organized  a  party,"  he  testified  afterwards,  "about  half- past 
two  or  three  o'clock,  and  sent  them  over  there  with  directions  to 
commence  the  fight  as  soon  as  they  got  near  enough ;  that  party  was 
under  the  command  of  a  young  man  named  Irwin.  He  went  over, 
and  at  the  first  fire  Kagi,  and  the  others  who  were  with  him  in 
Hall's  [the  Rifle]  Works,  went  out  the  back  way  towards  the  Win 
chester  railroad,  climbed  out  on  the  railroad  and  into  the  Shenan- 
doah  River.  They  were  met  on  the  opposite  side  by  a  party  who 
were  there  and  driven  back.  ..." 

Mr.  A.  R.  Boteler,  the  Congressman  from  the  Harper's 
Ferry  district,  was  an  eye-witness  of  what  happened.  The 
three  raiders  made  for  a  large  flat  rock  near  the  middle  of  the 
stream.  Before  reaching  it,  Kagi  "fell  and  died  in  the  water, 
apparently  without  a  struggle;"  Lewis  Sheridan  Leary  was 
mortally  wounded,  and  John  A.  Copeland  was  captured  by  a 
Harper's  Ferrian,  James  H.  Holt  by  name,  who  waded  out  to 
him  as  Schoppert  had  to  Leeman.  But  Holt's  gun,  like  Cope- 
land's  rifle,  failed  to  go  off  because  of  its  having  become  wet. 
Copeland  surrendered  as  Holt,  clubbing  his  gun,  was  about  to 
knock  him  down.  As  soon  as  Copeland  was  brought  to  the 
bank,  there  were  cries  of:  "Lynch  him!"  Fortunately,  Dr. 
Starry  rode  up  as  the  citizens,  now  near  the  armory  wall  with 
their  prisoner,  were  tying  their  handkerchiefs  together  that 
they  might  hang  the  trembling  negro.  But  Dr.  Starry  was  not 
of  the  bloodthirsty  kind.  To  his  credit,  and  that  of  Harper's 
Ferry,  he  shielded  Copeland  by  getting  him  into  a  corner  and 
covering  him  with  the  horse  who  had  carried  his  master  so 
faithfully  all  day.  In  a  little  while  a  policeman  arrived,  and, 
Dr.  Starry  still  holding  back  the  crowd,  Copeland  was  taken 
off  to  a  safe  place,  thus  escaping  William  Thompson's  fate. 
Leary,  the  wounded  negro,  was  in  no  wise  molested,  dying 
late  the  following  night.43 

Two  men  alone,  of  those  of  the  Provisional  Army  who 
remained  in  the  town  after  the  Maryland  bridge  was  taken 
by  the  Jefferson  Guards,  escaped  from  the  Ferry,  —  Albert 
Hazlett  and  Osborn  P.  Anderson.  The  latter,  the  colored 
raider  from  Canada,  subsequently  wrote  a  misleading  and 
exaggerated  account  of  their  escape  from  the  armory,  in 


446  JOHN  BROWN 

which  he  states  that  they  remained  at  their  posts  until  the 
final  capture  of  Tuesday.  This  is,  however,  incredible.  It  is 
not  possible  that  they  could  have  gone  scot-free  in  daylight, 
when  Lee's  marines  were  everywhere  on  guard  and  the  town 
swarmed  with  excited  militia.  In  all  probability  they  left 
their  posts  in  the  arsenal  about  nightfall  on  Monday,  when 
everybody  was  watching  the  armory  yard  and  the  engine 
house.  According  to  Anderson,  they  first  went  along  the 
Shenandoah  and  climbed  the  hill  just  out  of  town,  where  they 
lay  concealed  for  three  hours;  then,  returning  into  the  town 
along  the  river,  they  found  an  old  boat  and  crossed  in  it  to 
the  Maryland  side.  If  this,  too,  seems  incredible,  their  escape 
by  whatever  means  was  miraculous,  for  they  did  reach  the 
Kennedy  Farm,  and  from  there  found  their  way  into  Pennsyl 
vania,  where  Hazlett  was  finally  captured.  Of  the  rear-g^iard 
on  the  Maryland  side,  John  E.  Cook  alone  ventured  back  to 
the  Ferry  bridge,  late  in  the  afternoon  of  Monday.  He  had 
been  on  guard  in  the  school-house  to  which  Tidd  and  Owen 
Brown  were  moving  arms,  and  had  conversed  quite  freely  with 
the  schoolmaster,  explaining  the  purposes  of  the  attack  and 
the  views  of  the  raiders.44  He  distinctly  heard  the  firing, 
but  not  until  four  o'clock,  when  a  second  wagon-load  of  arms 
was  brought  to  the  school-house,  did  he  feel  free  to  leave.  To 
acquaintances  along  the  road  he  openly  admitted  his  connec 
tion  with  the  raiders.  When  opposite  the  Ferry,  he  scaled  the 
mountain  in  order  to  get  a  view  of  what  was  going  on,  and 
beheld  his  comrades  cooped  up  in  the  engine  house  with  the 
citizens  firing  on  them.  As,  he  confessed  after  his  capture, 

"I  saw  that  our  party  were  completely  surrounded,  and  as  I  saw 
a  body  of  men  on  High  Street  firing  down  upon  them  —  they  were 
about  half  a  mile  distant  from  me  —  I  thought  I  would  draw  their 
firing  upon  myself;  I  therefore  raised  my  rifle  and  took  the  best  aim 
I  could  and  fired.  It  had  the  desired  effect,  for  the  very  instant  the 
party  returned  it.  Several  shots  were  exchanged.  The  last  one  they 
fired  cut  a  small  limb  I  had  hold  of  just  below  my  hand,  and  gave 
me  a  fall  of  about  fifteen  feet  by  which  I  was  severely  bruised  and 
my  flesh  somewhat  lacerated." 

He  then  descended  to  the  canal  and  returned  to  the  school- 
house,  where  he  rejoined  the  rear-guard,  now  comprising  Owen 
Brown,  Barclay  Coppoc,  Meriam,  Tidd,  and  several  of  the 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  447 

negroes  liberated  and  armed.  All  of  the  latter  left  the  raiders 
before  the  coming  night  passed. 

With  the  disappearance  of  Cook,  the  withdrawal  of  Al- 
burtis  and  the  coming  of  night,  the  active  hostilities  of  the 
day  ceased.  In  loose  fashion  the  militia  picketed  the  engine 
house./ A  citizen,  Samuel  Strider  by  name,  tied  a  handkerchief 
to  his  umbrella  and  delivered  a  summons  to  surrender,45  to 
which  John  Brown  replied  by  the  following  note: 

Capt.  John  Brown  answers: 

In  consideration  of  all  my  men,  whether  living  or  dead,  or 
wounded,  being  soon  safely  in  and  delivered  up  to  me  at  this  point 
with  all  their  arms  and  amunition,  we  will  then  take  our  prisoners 
and  cross  the  Potomac  bridge,  a  little  beyond  which  we  will  set  them 
at  liberty;  after  which  we  can  negotiate  about  the  Government 
property  as  may  be  best.  Also  we  require  the  delivery  of  our  horse 
and  harness  at  the  hotel. 

JOHN  BROWN. 

To  this  Colonel  Baylor  answered  briefly  that  he  could  not 
accept  the  terms  proposed;  that  under  no  conditions  would 
he  consent  to  a  removal  of  the  citizens  across  the  river.46 
When  the  Frederick  companies  arrived,  one  of  the  captains, 
Sinn  by  name,  went  close  up  to  the  engine-house.  Being 
hailed  from  there,  he  promptly  entered,  conversing  at  length 
with  John  Brown,  who  was  then,  as  during  the  entire  fight, 
wearing  the  sword  of  Frederick  the  Great.  To  Captain  Sinn 
Brown  again  stated  his  terms,  complaining  also  that  his  men 
when  bearing  flags  of  truce  had  been  shot  down  like  dogs. 
To  this  Captain  Sinn  replied  that  men  who  took  up  arms 
that  way  must  expect  to  be  shot  down  like  dogs.  John  Brown's 
answer  was  that  he  knew  what  he  had  to  undergo  before  he 
came  there,  "he  had  weighed  the  responsibility  and  should 
not  shrink  from  it."  He  had  had  full  possession  of  the  town 
and  could  have  massacred  all  the  inhabitants  had  he  thought 
proper  to  do  so;  hence  he  believed  himself  entitled  to  some 
terms.  He  insisted  that  he  and  his  followers  had  killed  no 
unarmed  men.  When  told  that  Beckham  was  without  any 
weapon  when  killed,  he  expressed  deep  regret.  They  then 
parted.  Captain  Sinn,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  soldier  of 
a  fine  type,  recorded  his  disgust  with  conditions  among  the 
citizens.47  Many  of  them  were  hopelessly  intoxicated,  only 


448  JOHN  BROWN 

a  few  of  them  were  under  any  discipline  or  control,  all  of 
them  had  guns,  and  some,  according  to  Captain  Sinn  and 
others,  were  firing  their  guns  in  the  air  all  night,  whooping 
and  yelling,  and  generally  behaving  as  if  the  enemy  were  to 
be  exorcised  by  noise  and  bravado.  Entering  the  Wager 
House,  the  chivalrous  Sinn  found  some  young  men  taunting 
the  gravely  wounded  Stevens  and  pointing  their  revolvers 
at  liim,  but  without  in  the  least  causing  him  to  flinch.  It  was 
not  the  first  time  that  day  that  death  had  thus  approached 
Stevens,  but  it  was  the  last,  for  Sinn  drove  the  men  out,  say 
ing:  "  If  this  man  could  stand  on  his  feet  with  a  pistol  in  his 
hand,  you  would  all  jump  out  of  the  window."  *  But  Captain 
Sinn  did  not  weary  of  well-doing  here ;  he  induced  the  surgeon 
of  his  command,  a  Dr.  Taylor,  of  Frederick,  to  staunch  the 
wounds  of  Watson  Brown,  in  the  engine  house.  The  surgeon 
did  so  and  promised  to  return  early  in  the  morning,48  but 
by  that  time  the  engine-house  was  stormed  and  his  patient, 
in  extremis,  beyond  all  surgical  aid.  This  was  a  curious  epi 
sode  in  what  was  a  unique  American  tragedy;  where  else 
have  men  killed,  then  met  and  conversed  with  one  another 
and  aided  the  wounded,  and  then  killed  again? 

With  the  withdrawal  of  Captain  Sinn  and  Dr.  Taylor,  the 
.engine  house  composed  itself  for  the  night.  Prisoners  and 
raiders  lay  down  on  the  brick  floor  to  get  such  rest  as  they 
could;  the  morrow,  they  all  knew,  would  seal  the  raiders' 
fate.  The  doors,  shut  and  barred,  did  not  keep  out  the  yell 
ing  of  the  drunken  soldiery.  But  within  all  was  dark;  the 
liberators  had  no  light;  it  was  intensely  cold. 

"In  the  quiet  of  the  night,"  the  younger  Allstadt  remembers, 
"young  Oliver  Brown  died.  He  had  begged  again  and  again  to  be 
shot,  in  the  agony  of  his  wound,  but  his  father  had  replied  to  him, 
'Oh  you  will  get  over  it,'  and,  'If  you  must  die,  die  like  a  man.' 
Now  John  Brown  talked,  from  time  to  time,  with  my  father  and  with 
Colonel  Washington,  but  I  did  not  hear  what  was  said.  Oliver 
Brown  lay  quietly  over  in  a  corner.  His  father  called  to  him,  after 
a  time.  No  answer.  '  I  guess  he  is  dead,'  said  Brown."  49 

*  Later,  during  the  trial,  Captain  Sinn  showed  an  equally  fine  spirit  in  going 
to  Charlestown  on  a  summons  from  John  Brown  to  testify  in  his  behalf,  "so  that 
Northern  men  would  have  no  opportunity  to  say  that  Southern  men  were  unwill 
ing  to  appear  as  witnesses  on  behalf  of  one  whose  principles  they  abhorred." 


JOHN    H.    KAG1 


A.    D.    STEVENS 


OLIVER    BROWN  WATSON    BROWN 

VICTIMS    OF    HARPER'S    FERRY 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  449 

Near  his  brother,  Watson  lay  quietly  breathing  his  young 
life  away.  Stewart  Taylor,  the  young  Canadian,  shot  like 
Oliver  in  the  doorway  of  the  engine  house,  lay  dead  near-by. 
There  were  left  alive  and  unwounded  but  five  men,  the  com- 
mander-in-chief,  Edwin  Coppoc,  J.  G.  Anderson,  Dauphin 
Thompson  and  Shields  Green.  John  Brown  himself,  though 
plainly  anxious  to  have  his  terms  accepted,  betrayed  no  trepi 
dation  whatever.  Although  now  over  forty  hours  without 
sleep,  he  sought  no  rest.  "Men,  are  you  awake?"  he  asked 
from  time  to  time  in  the  stillness  of  the  night.  John  E.  P. 
Daingerfield  remembered  a  talk  with  John  Brown  that  night, 
in  which  he  told  him  that  the  raiders  were  committing  treason 
against  the  State  and  the  United  States.  "Two  of  his  men, 
hearing  the  conversation,  said  to  their  leader,  'Are  we  com 
mitting  treason  against  our  country  by  being  here?'  Brown 
answered, '  Certainly.'  Both  declared, '  If  that  is  so,  we  don't 
want  to  fight  any  more.  We  thought  we  came  to  liberate  the 
slaves  and  did  not  know  that  that  was  committing  treason.' ' 
At  the  break  of  dawn,  these  two  young  men,  Dauphin  Thomp 
son  and  Jeremiah  G.  Anderson,  gave  up  their  lives  on  the 
bayonets  of  the  marines.50 

For  representatives  of  the  Federal  Government  had  ap 
peared  on  the  scene;  as  the  raiders  learned  from  the  friendly 
Captain  Sinn,  the  United  States  marines  had  arrived  and  had 
supplanted  the  loose  oversight  of  the  militia  with  the  sharp 
patrolling  and  guarding  of  regular  soldiers.  The  news  of  the 
raid  had  stirred  official  Washington  to  prompt  action  early 
in  the  day.  President  Buchanan  telegraphed  at  1.30  to  the 
president  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  that  three 
companies  of  artillery  had  been  sent  from  Fort  Monroe,  and 
that  he  had  accepted  the  services  of  Captain  Ritchie's  militia 
company  at  Fredericksburg,  Maryland.51  After  sending  the 
despatch,  he  also  ordered  to  Harper's  Ferry  the  only  United 
States  force  in  Washington,  —  a  small  company  of  marines 
at  the  navy  yard,  commanded  by  Lieutenant  Israel  Green. 
Mr.  Buchanan's  despatch  did  not  satisfy  the  alarmed  Mr. 
Garrett,  who  replied  that  his  agents  reported  no  less  than 
seven  hundred  blacks  and  whites  in  possession  of  the  Har 
per's  Ferry  arsenal.  "  It  is  a  moment  full  of  peril,"  he  added.52 

The  raid  now  brought  to  the  front  two  officers,  both  tern- 


450  JOHN  BROWN 

porarily  in  Washington,  who  were  soon  to  write  their  names 
large  upon  the  pages  of  history.  Since  the  raid  on  Harper's 
Ferry  itself  was  to  be  in  its  every  aspect  a  prologue  to  1861, 
it  was  eminently  fitting  that  the  most  conspicuous  military 
r6les  should  fall  to  Brevet-Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee,  then  lieu 
tenant-colonel  of  the  Second  United  States  Cavalry,  and  to 
First  Lieutenant  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  of  the  First  Cavalry,  to 
whom  many  students  of  military  history  assign  first  place 
among  American  cavalry  generals.  Their  subsequent  careers 
in  the  Confederate  Army  make  it  singularly  suggestive  that 
they  should  have  been  the  ones  to  end  John  Brown's  attack 
upon  slavery,  since  it  was  in  defence  of  slavery  that  they  were 
so  soon  to  draw  their  swords  against  the  very  government 
at  whose  behest  they  went  to  Harper's  Ferry.  Both  officers 
attended  a  conference  at  the  White  House  with  the  Presi 
dent  and  the  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Floyd,  and  both  set  out 
that  afternoon  for  Harper's  Ferry,  Lee  to  command  all  the 
troops,  under  his  brevet  commission,  and  Stuart  to  act  as 
his  aide.53  They  overtook  the  marines  at  Sandy  Hook,  a 
mile  and  a  half  from  Harper's  Ferry,  at  eleven  o'clock  that 
night,  and  marched  them  at  once  to  the  armory.  Here  the 
marines  were  so  disposed  about  the  engine  house  that  no  one 
could  escape  during  the  night.  Lee  then  made  all  his  prepa 
rations  to  attack  at  daylight,  thus  adopting  John  Brown's 
own  policy  of  going  at  once  to  close  quarters.  "But  for  the 
fear  of  sacrificing  the  lives  of  some  of  the  gentlemen  held  by 
them  as  prisoners  in  a  midnight  assault,"  Colonel  Lee  after 
wards  reported,  "I  should  have  ordered  the  attack  at  once." 
What  happened  next,  Lieutenant  Stuart  later  described 
in  these  words: 

"Within  two  hours  of  that  time  [midnight],  say  by  two  A.M., 
Colonel  Lee  communicated  to  me  his  determination  to  demand  a 
surrender  of  the  whole  party  at  first  dawn,  and  in  case  of  refusal, 
which  he  expected,  he  would  have  ready  a  few  picked  men,  who 
were  at  a  signal  to  take  the  place  at  once  with  the  bayonet.  He 
chose  to  demand  a  surrender  before  attacking,  because  he  wanted 
every  chance  to  save  the  prisoners  unhurt,  and  to  attack  with  bayo 
nets  for  the  same  reason."  .  .  ,54  "  I,  too,  had  a  part  to  perform,  which 
prevented  me  in  a  measure  from  participating  in  the  very  brief  onset 
made  so  gallantly  by  Green  and  Russell,  well  backed  by  their  men. 
I  was  deputed  by  Col,  Lee  to  read  to  the  leader,  then  called  Smith, 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  451 

a  demand  to  surrender  immediately;  and  I  was  instructed  to  leave 
the  door  after  his  refusal,  which  was  expected,  and  wave  my  cap;  at 
which  signal  the  storming  party  was  to  advance,  batter  open  the 
doors,  and  capture  the  insurgents  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  Col. 
Lee  cautioned  the  stormers  particularly  to  discriminate  between 
the  insurgents  and  their  prisoners.  I  approached  the  door  in  the 
presence  of  perhaps  2000  spectators,  and  told  Mr.  Smith  that  I  had 
a  communication  for  him  from  Col.  Lee.  He  opened  the  door  about 
four  inches,  and  placed  his  body  against  the  crack,  with  a  cocked 
carbine  in  his  hand :  hence  his  remark  after  his  capture  that  he  could 
have  wiped  me  out  like  a  mosquito.  The  parley  was  a  long  one.  He 
presented  his  propositions  in  every  possible  shape,  and  with  admira 
ble  tact;  but  all  amounted  to  this:  that  the  only  condition  upon 
which  he  would  surrender  was  that  he  and  his  party  should  be  al 
lowed  to  escape.  Some  of  his  prisoners  begged  me  to  ask  Col.  Lee 
to  come  and  see  him.  I  told  them  he  would  never  accede  to  any 
terms  but  those  he  had  offered ;  and  so  soon  as  I  could  tear  myself 
away  from  their  importunities,  I  left  the  door  and  waved  my  cap, 
and  Col.  Lee's  plan  was  carried  out.  When  Smith  first  came  to 
the  door,  I  recognized  old  Osawatomie  Brown,  who  had  given  us  so 
much  trouble  in  Kansas.  No  one  present  but  myself  could  have  per 
formed  that  service.  I  got  his  bowie  knife  from  his  person  and  have 
it  yet."55 

The  demand  submitted  to  John  Brown  by  Lieutenant  Stuart 
read  as  follows : 56 

HEADQUARTERS  HARPER'S  FERRY, 

October  18,  1859. 

Colonel  Lee,  United  States  army,  commanding  the  troops  sent 
by  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  suppress  the  insurrection 
at  this  place,  demands  the  surrender  of  the  persons  in  the  armory 
buildings. 

If  they  will  peaceably  surrender  themselves  and  restore  the  pil 
laged  property,  they  shall  be  kept  in  safety  to  await  the  orders  of 
the  President.  Colonel  Lee  represents  to  them,  in  all  frankness,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  them  to  escape;  that  the  armory  is  surrounded 
on  all  sides  by  troops;  and  that  if  he  is  compelled  to  take  them  by 
force  he  cannot  answer  for  their  safety. 

R.  E.  LEE. 
Colonel  Commanding  United  States  Troops. 

Even  this  letter  failed  to  induce  John  Brown  to  surrender, 
and  his  decision  thus  taken  caused  three  deaths  within  fifteen 
minutes,  two  of  them  of  his  own  men,  in  the  blind  and  pur 
poseless  struggle  against  overwhelming  numbers.  "My  ob 
ject  was,  with  a  view  to  saving  our  citizens,  to  have  as  short 
an  interval  as  possible  between  the  summons  and  attack,'' 


452  JOHN  BROWN 

Colonel  Lee  reported  officially;  and  the  whole  proceeding  was 
marked  by  the  despatch  and  efficiency  characteristic  of  well- 
disciplined  regular  troops.  Colpjiel^Lee,  who  was  in  civilian 
clothes,  stood  on  a  slight  elevation,  about  forty  feelTaway, 
ancT  supervised  the  whole  undertaking.  In  the  early  morning 
hours  he  had  offered  the  honor  of  storming  the  engine  house 
to  the  volunteer  soldiery,57  but  this  was  declined  by  Colonel 
Shriver,  of  the  Frederick,  Maryland,  troops,  who  seems  at  this 
time  to  have  been  more  in  control  than  the  senior  Virginia 
Colonel,  Baylor,  who  had  superseded  Colonel  John  T.  Gib 
son.  Colonel  Shriver  said  that  he  had  only  come  to  help  the 
people  of  Harper's  Ferry.  ' '  These  men  of  mine  have  wives  and 
children  at  home.  I  will  not  expose  them  to  such  risks.  You 
are  paid  for  doing  this  kind  of  work."58  Colonel  Baylor  also 
declined  the  honor,  afterwards  assigning  the  same  reason.59 
But  the  "mercenaries,"  as  Colonel  Baylor  called  the  marines, 
looked  at  the  matter  in  a  different  light.  When  Colonel  Lee 
turned  to  Lieutenant  Israel  Green  and  asked  him  whether 
he  wished  the  honor  of  "taking  those  men  out,"  Lieutenant 
Green  at  once,  with  soldierly  courtesy,  took  off  his  hat  and 
thanked  Colonel  Lee  simply  and  sincerely.60  He  then  picked 
a  storming  detail  of  twelve  men,  with  a  reserve  of  a  similar 
number,  and  gave  them  the  most  careful  instructions.  At 
sunrise,  when  Lieutenant  Stuart  gave  his  signal,  Green,  with 
the  greatest  sang-froid,  ordered  the  attack  to  begin.  Neither 
he  nor  his  men  had  been  under  fire  before,  but  it  made  no 
difference  in  their  bearing.  Lieutenant  Green  himself  was 
armed  only  with  a  light  dress  sword  which  he  had  picked  up 
as  he  hastily  left  his  quarters,  ignorant  of  the  duty  for  which 
he  and  his  men  were  ordered  out.61  Near  him,  as  a  volunteer, 
stood  a  senior  in  rank,  one  of  his  own  corps,  Major  W.  W. 
Russell,  who,  as  a  paymaster  and  staff  officer,  could  not  take 
active  command.  Major  Russell  carried  nothing  but  a  rat 
tan  cane,  yet  he  risked  his  life  with  nonchalance.62 

Three  marines,  armed  with  sledge-hammers,  began  bat 
tering  at  the  heavy  doors  of  the  engine-house,  with  slight 
success.  A  heavy  ladder  lay  near  by.  Perceiving  that,  Lieu 
tenant  Green  ordered  his  men  to  use  it  as  a  battering-ram. 
The  door  was  broken  in  at  the  second  blow.  Up  to  this  time, 
the  few  shots  fired  from  within  the  engine  house  had  struck 


#2ittL^ii 


"J   15 


••••- 


\> 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  453 

no  one  of  the  storming  party.  Within,  said  Colonel  Washing 
ton,  in  this  supreme  moment,  John  Brown  "was  the  coolest 
and  firmest  man  I  ever  saw  in  defying  danger  and  death. 
With  one  son  dead  by  his  side,  and  another  shot  through,  he 
felt  the  pulse  of  his  dying  son  with  one  hand  and  held  his  rifle 
with  the  other,  and  commanded  his  men  with  the  utmost 
composure,  encouraging  them  to  be  firm  and  to  sell  their  lives 
as  dearly  as  they  could."63  "The  entrance,"  recorded  Lieu 
tenant  Green,  in  after  years, 

"was  a  ragged  hole  low  down  in  the  right  hand  door,  the  door 
being  splintered  and  cracked  some  distance  upward.  I  instantly 
stepped  from  my  position  in  front  of  the  stone  abutment  and  entered 
the  opening  made  by  the  ladder.  At  the  time  I  did  not  stop  to  think 
of  it,  but  upon  reflection  I  should  say  that  Brown  had  just  emptied 
his  carbine  at  the  point  broken  by  the  ladder,  and  so  I  passed 
in  safely.  Getting  to  my  feet,  I  ran  to  the  right  of  the  engine, 
which  stood  behind  the  door,  passed  quickly  to  the  rear  of  the  house, 
and  came  up  between  the  two  engines.  The  first  person  I  saw  was 
Colonel  Lewis  Washington,  who  was  standing  near  the  hose-cart, 
at  the  front  of  the  engine-house.  On  one  knee,  a  few  feet  to  the  left, 
knelt  a  man  with  a  carbine  in  his  hand,  just  pulling  the  lever  to 
reload."  64 

Colonel  Washington  greeted  Green,  whom  he  knew,  calmly, 
and  pointed  Brown  out  to  him,  saying,  "This  is  Osawatomie." 
What  happened  then  was  variously  related  by  the  several 
witnesses  and  by  Lieutenant  Green  himself.  It  would  seem 
as  though  Green  sprang  at  Brown,  lunging  at  him  with  his 
light  sword  and  bringing  him  to  his  knees.  The  sword  bent 
double  in  striking  Brown's  belt  or  a  bone;  taking  the  bent 
weapon  in  both  hands,  Lieutenant  Green  showered  blows 
upon  Brown's  head,  which  laid  him  flat,  brought  the  blood, 
and  seemed  to  the  onlookers  as  if  they  must  reach  the  skull.65 
But  fortunately  for  Brown  and  for  his  "greatest  or  principal 
object,"  the  weapon  was  too  light  to  inflict  a  mortal  wound. 
All  unawares,  Lieutenant  Green,  by  failing  to  buckle  on  his 
regulation  sabre,  had  done  a  profound  service  to  the  cause 
that  John  Brown  had  at  heart,  and  that  Green,  later  a  Con 
federate  officer,  though  born  in  the  North,  hated.  Men  have 
carved  their  way  to  kingdoms  by  the  stoutness  of  their  swords, 
but  here  was  one  who  by  the  flimsiness  of  his  blade  permitted 


454  JOHN  BROWN 

his  enemy  to  live  to  thrill  half  a  nation  by  his  spoken  and 
written  word. 

At  the  time,  however,  it  seemed  as  if  Brown  had  perished 
as  did  Jeremiah  Anderson  and  Dauphin  Thompson.  As  the 
marines  followed  their  lieutenant  through  the  aperture,  a  shot 
rang  out,  and  the  first  man,  Private  Luke  Quin,  went  down, 
with  a  mortal  wound.  The  next  marine  behind  him  was 
gravely  wounded  in  the  face.  Jumping  over  their  fallen  com 
rades,  the  other  marines  were  in  no  spirit  to  be  gentle.  "They 
came  rushing  in,"  said  their  officer, 

"like  tigers,  as  a  storming  assault  is  not  a  play-day  sport.  They 
bayoneted  one  man  skulking  under  the  engine,  and  pinned  another 
fellow  up  against  the  rear  wall,  both  being  instantly  killed.*  I  or 
dered  the  men  to  spill  no  more  blood.  The  other  insurgents  were  at 
once  taken  under  arrest,  and  the  contest  ended.  The  whole  fight  had 
not  lasted  over  three  minutes." 

As  for  the  eleven  prisoners,  they  were,  recorded  Lieuten 
ant  Green,  "the  sorriest  lot  of  people  I  ever  saw.  They  had 
been  without  food  for  over  sixty  hours,  in  constant  dread  of 
being  shot,  and  were  huddled  up  in  the  corner  where  lay  the 
body  of  Brown's  son  and  one  or  two  others  of  the  insurgents 
who  had  been  killed."  The  dead,  dying  and  badly  wounded 
raiders  were  then  carried  out  and  laid  on  the  grass  in  the 
armory  yard.  Of  John  Brown's  force  of  twenty- two,  he  him 
self,  his  second  in  command,  Stevens,  two  negroes,  Copeland 
and  Green,  and  Edwin  Coppoc  were  in  the  enemy's  hands. 
Watson  Brown  lived  twenty  hours  after  being  taken  from  the 
engine-house;  the  bodies  of  nine  others  lay  in  front  of  their 
fort  or  scattered  about  the  town.  The  remainder,  seven  in 
number,  were  already  well  started  on  their  way  toward 
Pennsylvania.  Colonel  Lee  saw  to  it  that  the  captured  sur 
vivors  were  protected  and  treated  with  kindliness  and  con 
sideration.66  For  Watson  Brown,  too,  there  was  a  good 
Samaritan,  also  a  Southerner,  C.  W.  Tayleure,  a  reporter  of 
a  Baltimore  newspaper,  who  wrote  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  just 
twenty  years  after  the  event,  this  touching  story  of  Watson 
Brown's  death : 67 

*  According  to  other  statements,  Anderson  did  not  die  for  some  time  after  his 
removal  from  the  engine  house.  Both  Thompson  and  Anderson  seem  to  have 
cried  out  as  the  marines  came  in  that  they  surrendered. 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  455 

"I  am  a  South  Carolinian,  and  at  the  time  of  the  raid  was  very 
deeply  imbued  with  the  political  prejudices  of  my  State;  but  the 
serenity,  calm  courage,  and  devotion  to  duty  which  your  father  and 
his  followers  then  manifested  impressed  me  very  profoundly.  It  is 
impossible  not  to  feel  respect  for  men  who  offer  up  their  lives  in 
support  of  their  convictions,  and  the  earnestness  of  my  respect  I  put 
upon  record  in  a  Baltimore  paper  the  day  succeeding  the  event.  I 
gave  your  brother  a  cup  of  water  to  quench  his  thirst  (this  was  at 
about  7.30  on  the  morning  of  the  capture)  and  improvised  a  couch 
for  him  out  of  a  bench,  with  a  pair  of  overalls  for  a  pillow.  I  remem 
ber  how  he  looked,  —  singularly  handsome,  even  through  the  grime 
of  his  all-day  struggles,  and  the  intense  suffering  which  he  must 
have  endured.  He  was  very  calm,  and  of  a  tone  and  look  very  gen 
tle.  The  look  with  which  he  searched  my  very  heart  I  can  never 
forget.  One  sentence  of  our  conversation  will  give  you  the  keynote 
to  the  whole.  I  asked  him,  'What  brought  you  here?'  He  replied, 
very  patiently,  'Duty,  sir.'  After  a  pause,  I  again  asked: ' Is  it  then 
your  idea  of  duty  to  shoot  men  down  upon  their  own  hearth-stones 
for  defending  their  rights?'  He  answered:  'I  am  dying;  I  cannot 
discuss  the  question;  I  did  my  duty  as  I  saw  it.'  This  conversation 
occurred  in  the  compartment  of  the  engine-house  adjoining  that 
in  which  the  defence  had  been  made,  and  was  listened  to  by  young 
Coppoc  with  perfect  equanimity,  and  by  Shields  Green  with  un 
controllable  terror." 

^  John  Brown  himself  was  carried  to  the  office  of  the  pay 
master  of  the  armory  and  there  given  medical  attention,  it 
soon  appearing  that  his  wounds  were  far  less  serious  than  at 
first  supposed.  But  the  end  of  the  Provisional  Army  had  come; 
John  Brown's  armed  blow  at  slavery  was  spent. 


"And  they  are  themselves  mistaken  who  take  him  to  be  a  mad 
man.  He  is  a  bundle  of  the  best  nerves  I  ever  saw  cut  and  thrust 
and  bleeding  and  in  bonds.  He  is  a  man  of  clear  head,  of  courage, 
fortitude  and  simple  ingenuousness.  He  is  cool,  collected  and  in 
domitable,  and  it  is  but  just  to  him  to  say  that  he  was  humane  to 
his  prisoners  as  attested  to  me  by  Colonel  Washington  and  Mr. 
Mills,  and  he  inspired  me  with  great  trust  in  his  integrity  as  a  man 
of  truth.  He  is  a  fanatic,  vain  and  garrulous,  but  firm,  truthful  and 
intelligent.  His  men,  too,  who  survive,  except  the  free  negroes  with 
him,  are  like  him." 

Thus  spoke  Henry  A.  Wise,  Governor  of  Virginia,  on  his 
return  to  Richmond  from  his  visit  to  Harper's  Ferry.68  The 
interview  with  Brown  upon  which  he  predicated  this  opinion 
took  place  shortly  after  the  Governor's  arrival,  at  about  one 


456  JOHN  BROWN 

in  the  afternoon,  in  the  paymaster's  office,  where  A.  D. 
Stevens  had  been  carried  to  lie  alongside  of  his  leader.  There 
have  been  few  more  dramatic  scenes  in  American  history ;  few 
upon  which  the  shadows  of  coming  events  were  more  omi 
nously  cast.  The  two  wounded  prisoners,  their  hair  clotted  and 
tangled,  their  faces,  hands  and  clothing  powder-stained  and 
blood-smeared,  lay  upon  what  the  reporter  of  the  New  York 
Herald,  who  preserved  for  posterity  this  interview,  called  their 
"miserable  shakedowns,  covered  with  some  old  bedding." 
Near  them  stood  Robert  E.  Lee,  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  Senator  J.  M. 
Mason,  Governor  Wise,  Congressman  Vallandigham,  of  Ohio, 
Colonel  Lewis  Washington,  Andrew  Hunter,  and  Congress 
man  Charles  James  Faulkner,  of  Virginia,  —  nearly  all  des 
tined  soon  to  play  important  roles,  the  first  four  in  the  Con 
federacy  that  was  to  come  into  being. 

The  courteous  Colonel  Lee  began  the  interview  by  saying 
that  he  would  exclude  all  visitors  from  the  room  if  the 
wounded  men  were  annoyed  or  pained  thereby.  To  this  John 
Brown  answered  that  he  was  "glad  to  make  himself  and  his 
motives  clearly  understood." 

"He  converses  freely,  fluently  and  cheerfully,  without  the  slight 
est  manifestation  of  fear  or  uneasiness,  evidently  weighing  well  his 
words,  and  possessing  a  good  command  of  language.  His  manner  is 
courteous  and  affable,  while  he  appears  to  be  making  a  favorable 
impression  upon  his  auditory,  which  during  most  of  the  day  yes 
terday  averaged  about  ten  or  a  dozen  men," 

wrote  the  Herald  representative.  A  reporter  of  the  Baltimore 
American  who  was  also  present  at  the  interview  declared  that 
during  the  conversation  "no  sign  of  weakness  was  exhibited  by 
John  Brown."69 

In  the  midst  of  enemies,  whose  home  he  had  invaded ;  wounded 
and  a  prisoner,  surrounded  by  a  small  army  of  officials,  and  a  more 
desperate  army  of  angry  men ;  with  the  gallows  staring  him  full  in 
the  face,  he  lay  on  the  floor,  and,  in  reply  to  every  question,  gave 
answers  that  betokened  the  spirit  that  animated  him.  The  language 
of  Gov.  Wise  well  expresses  his  boldness  when  he  said  'He  is  the 
gamest  man  I  ever  saw."1 

From  the  long  Herald  interview,  lasting  fully  three  hours, 
the  following  are  excerpts: 70 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  457 

Mr.  Mason.  —  Can  you  tell  us,  at  least,  who  furnished  the 
money  for  your  expedition? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  furnished  most  of  it  myself.  I  cannot  implicate 
others.  It  is  by  my  own  folly  that  I  have  been  taken.  I  could  easily 
have  saved  myself  from  it  had  I  exercised  my  own  better  judgment, 
rather  than  yielded  to  my  feelings. 

Mr.  Mason.  — You  mean  if  you  had  escaped  immediately? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No ;  I  had  the  means  to  make  myself  secure  with 
out  any  escape,  but  I  allowed  myself  to  be  surrounded  by  a  force  by 
being  too  tardy. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  Tardy  in  getting  away? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  should  have  gone  away,  but  I  had  thirty-odd 
prisoners,  whose  wives  and  daughters  were  in  tears  for  their  safety, 
and  I  felt  for  them.  Besides,  I  wanted  to  allay  the  fears  of  those  who 
believed  we  came  here  to  burn  and  kill.  For  this  reason  I  allowed 
the  train  to  cross  the  bridge,  and  gave  them  full  liberty  to  pass  on. 
I  did  it  only  to  spare  the  feelings  of  those  passengers  and  their  fami 
lies,  and  to  allay  the  apprehensions  that  you  had  got  here  in  your 
vicinity  a  band  of  men  who  had  no  regard  for  life  and  property,  nor 
any  feelings  of  humanity. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  But  you  killed  some  people  passing  along  the 
streets  quietly. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  Well,  sir,  if  there  was  anything  of  that  kind  done, 
it  was  without  my  knowledge.  Your  own  citizens,  who  were  my 
prisoners,  will  tell  you  that  every  possible  means  were  taken  to  pre 
vent  it.  I  did  not  allow  my  men  to  fire,  nor  even  to  return  a  fire, 
when  there  was  danger  of  killing  those  we  regarded  as  innocent 
persons,  if  I  could  help  it.  They  will  tell  you  that  we  allowed  our 
selves  to  be  fired  at  repeatedly  and  did  not  return  it. 

A  Bystander.  —  That  is  not  so.  You  killed  an  unarmed  man  at 
the  corner  of  the  house  over  there  (at  the  water-tank)  and  another 
besides. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  See  here,  my  friend,  it  is  useless  to  dispute  or 
contradict  the  report  of  your  own  neighbors  who  were  my  prisoners. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  If  you  would  tell  us  who  sent  you  here  —  who 
provided  the  means  —  that  would  be  information  of  some  value. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  will  answer  freely  and  faithfully  about  what  con 
cerns  myself  —  I  will  answer  anything  I  can  with  honor,  but  not 
about  others. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  (Member  of  Congress  from  Ohio,  who  had 
just  entered).  —  Mr.  Brown,  who  sent  you  here? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No  man  sent  me  here;  it  was  my  own  prompting 
and  that  of  my  Maker,  or  that  of  the  devil,  whichever  you  please 
to  ascribe  it  to.  I  acknowledge  no  man  in  human  form. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  How  many  are  engaged  with  you  in  this  move 
ment?   I  ask  these  questions  for  our  own  safety. 
Mr.  Brown.  —  Any  questions  that  I  can  honorably  answer  I  will, 


458  JOHN  BROWN 

not  otherwise.  So  far  as  I  am  myself  concerned,  I  have  told  every 
thing  truthfully.   I  value  my  word,  sir. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  What  was  your  object  in  coming? 
\  Mr.  Brown.  —  We  came  to  free  the  slaves,  and  only  that. 

A  Young  Man  (in  the  uniform  of  a  volunteer  company).  —  How 
many  men  in  all  had  you? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  came  to  Virginia  with  eighteen  men  only,  besides 
myself. 

Volunteer.  —  What  in  the  world  did  you  suppose  you  could  do 
here  in  Virginia  with  that  amount  of  men? 

Mr.  Brown.  — Young  man,  I  don't  wish  to  discuss  that  question 
here. 

Volunteer.  —  You  could  not  do  anything. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  Well,  perhaps  your  ideas  and  mine  on  military 
subjects  would  differ  materially. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  How  do  you  justify  your  acts? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  think,  my  friend,  you  are  guilty  of  a  great  wrong 
against  God  and  humanity  —  I  say  it  without  wishing  to  be  offen 
sive  —  and  it  would  be  perfectly  right  in  any  one  to  interfere  with 
you  so  far  as  to  free  those  you  wilfully  and  wickedly  hold  in  bondage. 
I  do  not  say  this  insultingly. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  I  understand  that. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  think  I  did  right,  and  that  others  will  do  right  to 
f/     interfere  with  you  at  any  time  and  all  times.   I  hold  that  the  Golden 
Rule,  "Do  unto  others  as  you  would  that  others  should  do  unto 
you,"  applies  to  all  who  would  help  others  to  gain  their  liberty. 

Lieut.  Stuart.  —  But  you  don't  believe  in  the  Bible, 
i    Mr.  Brown.  —  Certainly  I  do. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  Did  you  consider  this  a  military  organization,  in 
this  paper  [the  Constitution]  ?  I  have  not  yet  read  it. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  did  in  some  sense.  I  wish  you  would  give  that 
paper  close  attention. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  You  considered  yourself  the  Commander-in-Chief 
of  these  "provisional"  military  forces. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  was  chosen  agreeably  to  the  ordinance  of  a 
certain  document,  commander-in-chief  of  that  force. 

Mr.  Mason.  —  What  wages  did  you  offer? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  None. 

Lieut.  Stuart.  —  "The  wages  of  sin  is  death." 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  would  not  have  made  such  a  remark  to  you,  if 
you  had  been  a  prisoner  and  wounded  in  my  hands. 

A  Bystander.  —  Did  you  not  promise  a  negro  in  Gettysburg 
twenty  dollars  a  month? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  did  not. 

>-. ^          0     r-^-'^          ^  ' 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  When  in  Cleveland,  did  you  attend  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  Convention  there? 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  459 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No.  I  was  there  about  the  time  of  the  sitting  of 
the  court  to  try  the  Oberlin  rescuers.  I  spoke  there  publicly  on  that 
subject.  I  spoke  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  and  my  own  rescue.  Of 
course,  so  far  as  I  had  any  influence  at  all,  I  was  disposed  to  justify 
the  Oberlin  people  for  rescuing  the  slave,  because  I  have  myself 
forcibly  taken  slaves  from  bondage.  I  was  concerned  in  taking 
eleven  slaves  from  Missouri  to  Canada  last  winter.  I  think  I  spoke 
in  Cleveland  before  the  Convention.  I  do  not  know  that  I  had  any 
conversation  with  any  of  the  Oberlin  rescuers.  I  was  sick  part  of 
the  time  I  was  in  Ohio,  with  the  ague.  I  was  part  of  the  time  in 
Ashtabula  County. 

A  Bystander.  —  Did  you  go  out  to  Kansas  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Emigrant  Aid  Society? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No,  sir;  I  went  out  under  the  auspices  of  John 
Brown  and  nobody  else. 

Mr.  Vallandigham. — Will  you  answer  this:  Did  you  talk  with 
Mr.  Giddings  about  your  expedition  here? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No,  I  won't  answer  that;  because  a  denial  of  it  I 
would  not  make,  and  to  make  any  affirmation  of  it  I  should  be  a 
great  dunce. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  Have  you  had  any  correspondence  with 
parties  at  the  North  on  the  subject  of  this  movement? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  have  had  correspondence. 

A  Bystander.  —  Do  you  consider  this  a  religious  movement? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  It  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  greatest  service  a  man 
can  render  to  God. 

Bystander.  —  Do  you  consider  yourself  an  instrument  in  the  hands 
of  Providence? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  do. 

Bystander.  —  Upon  what  principle  do  you  justify  your  acts? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  Upon  the  golden  rule.  I  pity  the  poor  in  bondage 
that  have  none  to  help  them ;  that  is  why  I  am  here ;  not  to  gratify 
any  personal  animosity,  revenge  or  vindictive  spirit.||It  is  my  sym 
pathy  with  the  oppressed  and  the  wronged,  that  are  as  good  as  you 
and  as  precious  in  the  sight  of  God. 

Bystander.  —  Certainly.  But  why  take  the  slaves  against  their 
will? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  never  did. 

Bystander.  —  You  did  in  one  instance,  at  least. 

Stevens,  the  wounded  prisoner,  here  said,  in  a  firm,  clear  voice: 
"You  are  right.  In  one  case,  I  know  the  negro  wanted  to  go  back." 

Mr.  Vallandigham  (to  Mr.  Brown).  — Who  are  your  advisers  in 
this  movement? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  cannot  answer  that.  I  have  numerous  sympa 
thizers  throughout  the  entire  North. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  In  northern  Ohio? 


460  JOHN  BROWN 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No  more  there  than  anywhere  else;  in  all  the  free 
states. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  But  you  are  not  personally  acquainted  in 
southern  Ohio? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  Not  very  much. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  (to  Stevens).  —  Were  you  at  the  Convention 
last  June? 

Stevens.  —  I  was. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  (to  Brown).  You  made  a  speech  there? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  did. 

A  Bystander.  —  Did  you  ever  live  in  Washington  city? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  did  not.  I  want  you  to  understand,  gentlemen  — 
and  [to  the  reporter  of  the  Herald]  you  may  report  that  —  I  want 
tf  you  to  understand  that  I  respect  the  rights  of  the  poorest  and  weak 
est  of  colored  people,  oppressed  by  the  slave  system,  just  as  much 
as  I  do  those  of  the  most  wealthy  and  powerful.  That  is  the  idea 
that  has  moved  me,  and  that  alone.  We  expect  no  reward,  except 
the  satisfaction  of  endeavoring  to  do  for  those  in  distress  and  greatly 
oppressed,  as  we  would  be  done  by.  The  cry  of  distress  of  the 
oppressed  is  my  reason,  and  the  only  thing  that  prompted  me  to 
come  here. 

A  Bystander.  —  Why  did  you  do  it  secretly? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  Because  I  thought  that  necessary  to  success;  no 
other  reason. 

Bystander. — And  you  think  that  honorable?  Have  you  read 
Gerrit  Smith's  last  letter? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  What  letter  do  you  mean? 

Bystander.  —  The  New  York  Herald  of  yesterday,  in  speaking 
of  this  affair,  mentions  a  letter  in  this  way:  "Apropos  of  this  excit 
ing  news,  we  recollect  a  very  significant  passage  in  one  of  Gerrit 
Smith's  letters,  published  a  month  or  two  ago,  in  which  he  speaks 
of  the  folly  of  attempting  to  strike  the  shackles  off  the  slaves  by  the 
force  of  moral  suasion  or  legal  agitation,  and  predicts  that  the  next 
movement  made  in  the  direction  of  negro  emancipation  would  be 
an  insurrection  in  the  South." 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  have  not  seen  the  New  York  Herald  for  some  days 
past;  but  I  presume,  from  your  remark  about  the  gist  of  the  letter, 
/^  that  I  should  concur  with  it.  I  agree  with  Mr.  Smith  that  moral 
suasion  is  hopeless.  I  don't  think  the  people  of  the  slave  States  will 
ever  consider  the  subject  of  slavery  in  its  true  light  till  some  other 
argument  is  resorted  to  than  moral  suasion. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  Did  you  expect  a  general  rising  of  the 
slaves  in  case  of  your  success? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  No,  sir;  nor  did  I  wish  it.  I  expected  to  gather 
them  up  from  time  to  time  and  set  them  free. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  Did  you  expect  to  hold  possession  here  till 
then? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  Well,  probably  I  had  quite  a  different  idea.   I  do 


HIGH   TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  461 

not  know  that  I  ought  to  reveal  my  plans.  I  am  here  a  prisoner  and 
wounded,  because  I  foolishly  allowed  myself  to  be  so.  You  over 
rate  your  strength  in  supposing  I  could  have  been  taken  if  I  had 
not  allowed  it.  I  was  too  tardy  after  commencing  the  open  attack 
—  in  delaying  my  movements  through  Monday  night,  and  up  to 
that  time  I  was  attacked  by  the  government  troops.  It  was  all  occa 
sioned  by  my  desire  to  spare  the  feelings  of  my  prisoners  and  their 
families  and  the  community  at  large.  I  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
shooting  of  the  negro  [Hayward]. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  What  time  did  you  commence  your  or 
ganization  in  Canada? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  That  occurred  about  two  years  ago,  if  I  remem 
ber  right.  It  was,  I  think,  in  1858. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  —  Who  was  the  Secretary? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  That  I  would  not  tell  if  I  recollected,  but  I  do 
not  recollect.  I  think  the  officers  were  elected  in  May,  1858.  I  may 
answer  incorrectly,  but  not  intentionally.  My  head  is  a  little  con 
fused  by  wounds,  and  my  memory  obscure  on  dates,  etc. 

Dr.  Biggs.  —  Were  you  in  the  party  at  Dr.  Kennedy's  house? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  was  at  the  head  of  that  party.  I  occupied  the  house 
to  mature  my  plans.  I  have  not  been  in  Baltimore  to  purchase  caps. 

Dr.  Biggs.  —  What  was  the  number  of  men  at  Kennedy's? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  decline  to  answer  that. 

Dr.  Biggs.  —  Who  lanced  that  woman's  neck  on  the  hill? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  did.  I  have  sometimes  practised  in  surgery 
when  I  thought  it  a  matter  of  humanity  and  necessity,  and  there 
was  no  one  else  to  do  it,  but  I  have  not  studied  surgery. 

Dr.  Biggs.  —  It  was  done  very  well  and  scientifically.  They  have 
been  very  clever  to  the  neighbors,  I  have  been  told,  and  we  had  no 
reason  to  suspect  them  except  that  we  could  not  understand  their 
movements.  They  were  represented  as  eight  or  nine  persons;  on 
Friday  there  were  thirteen. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  There  were  more  than  that. 

Reporter  of  the  Herald.  —  I  do  not  wish  to  annoy  you ;  but  if  you 
have  anything  further  you  would  like  to  say  I  will  report  it. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  have  nothing  to  say,  only  that  I  claim  to  be 
here  in  carrying  out  a  measure  I  believe  perfectly  justifiable,  and 
not  to  act  the  part  pf  an  incendiary  or  ruffian,  but  to  aid  those  suf 
fering  great  wrong.  I  wish  to  say,  furthermore,  that  you  had  better 

—  all  you  people  at  the  South  —  prepare  yourselves  for  a  settle 
ment  of  that  question  that  must  come  up  for  settlement  sooner  than 
you  are  prepared  for  it.  The  sooner  you  are  prepared  the  better. 
You  may  dispose  of  me  very  easily;  I  am  nearly  disposed  of  now; 
but  this  question  is  still  to  be  settled  —  this  negro  question  I  mean 

-  the  end  of  that  is  not  yet.  These  wounds  were  inflicted  upon 
me — both  sabre  cuts  on  my  head  and  bayonet  stabs  in  the  different 
parts  of  my  body  —  some  minutes  after  I  had  ceased  fighting  and 


462  JOHN  BROWN 

had  consented  to  a  surrender,  for  the  benefit  of  others,  not  for  my 
own.  [This  statement  was  vehemently  denied  all  around.]*  I  be 
lieve  the  major  [meaning  Lieutenant  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  of  the  United 
States  Cavalry]f  would  not  have  been  alive;  I  could  have  killed 
him  just  as  easy  as  a  mosquito  when  he  came  in,  but  I  supposed  he 
came  in  only  to  receive  our  surrender.  There  had  been  loud  and 
long  calls  of  "surrender"  from  us  —  as  loud  as  men  could  yell  — 
but  in  the  confusion  and  excitement  I  suppose  we  were  not  heard. 
I  do  not  think  the  major,  or  any  one,  meant  to  butcher  us  after 
we  had  surrendered. 

An  officer  here  stated  that  the  orders  to  the  marines  were  not  to 
shoot  anybody;  but  when  they  were  fired  upon  by  Brown's  men  and 
one  of  them  killed,  they  were  obliged  to  return  the  compliment. 

Mr.  Brown  insisted  that  the  marines  fired  first. I 

An  Officer.  —  Why  did  not  you  surrender  before  the  attack? 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  did  not  think  it  was  my  duty  or  interest  to  do 
so.  We  assured  the  prisoners  that  we  did  not  wish  to  harm  them, 
and  that  they  should  be  set  at  liberty.  I  exercised  my  best  judg 
ment,  not  believing  the  people  would  wantonly  sacrifice  their  own 
fellow-citizens,  when  we  offered  to  let  them  go  on  condition  of  being 
allowed  to  change  our  position  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  The  pris 
oners  agreed  by  vote  among  themselves  to  pass  across  the  bridge 
with  us.  We  wanted  them  only  as  a  sort  of  guaranty  of  our  own 
safety;  that  we  should  not  be  fired  into.  We  took  them  in  the  first 
place  as  hostages  and  to  keep  them  from  doing  any  harm.  We  did 
kill  some  men  in  defending  ourselves,  but  I  saw  no  one  fire  except 
directly  in  self-defence.  Our  orders  were  strict  not  to  harm  any  one 
not  in  arms  against  us. 

Q.  —  Brown,  suppose  you  had  every  nigger  in  the  United  States, 
what  would  you  do  with  them? 

A .  —  Set  them  free. 

Q.  —  Your  intention  was  to  carry  them  off  and  free  them? 

A.  —  Not  at  all. 

'   A  Bystander.  —  To  set  them  free  would  sacrifice  the  life  of  every 
man  in  this  community. 

*  This  portion  of  the  interview  is  evidently  erroneous.  John  Brown  could 
hardly  have  maintained  that  he  was  struck  down  after  surrendering,  in  view  of  the 
shooting  of  the  two  marines  who  entered  the  engine  house  after  Lieutenant  Green; 
moreover,  in  his  testimony  during  his  trial  he  twice  stated  that  he  never  asked  for 
quarter.  It  is  true,  however,  that  as  the  marines  came  in,  two  of  the  raiders, 
Thompson  and  Anderson,  surrendered  and  there  were  shouts  of:  "One  man  sur 
renders."  If  John  Brown  had  meant  to  surrender,  the  time  to  do  so  was  when 
Lieutenant  Stuart  asked  him  to;  not  two  minutes  thereafter,  when  the  marines 
came  in  under  fire. 

t  This  is  evidently  a  confusion  of  Lieutenants  Stuart  and  Green  and  Major 
Russell, 
t;  %  This  statement  is  erroneous;  the  marines  fired  no  shots  whatever. 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  463 

Mr.  Brown.  —  I  do  not  think  so. 

Bystander.  —  I  know  it.   I  think  you  are  fanatical. 

Mr.  Brown.  —  And  I  think  you  are  fanatical.   "Whom  the  gods 
would  destroy  they  first  make  mad,"  and  you  are  mad. 
t    Q.  —  Was  it  your  only  object  to  free  the  negroes? 
|..  A.  —  Absolutely  our  only  object. 

Q.  —  But  you  demanded  and  took  Colonel  Washington's  silver 
and  watch? 

A.  —  Yes;  we  intended  freely  to  appropriate  the  property  of 
slaveholders  to  carry  out  our  object.  It  was  for  that,  and  only  that, 
and  with  no  design  to  enrich  ourselves  with  any  plunder  whatever. 

According  to  a  later  report  in  the  Herald,  Governor  Wise,  on 
his  return  to  Richmond,  said  somebody  in  the  crowd  applied 
to  Brown  the  epithet  "robber,"  and  that  Brown  retorted, 
"You  [alluding  to  the  slaveholders]  are  the  robbers."  And 
it  was  in  this  connection  that  he  said,  "  If  you  have  your  opin 
ions  about  me,  I  have  my  opinions  about  you."  At  this  time 
the  Governor  remarked  to  him,  "Mr.  Brown,  the  silver  of 
your  hair  is  reddened  by  the  blood  of  crime,  and  it  is  meet 
that  you  should  eschew  these  hard  allusions  and  think  upon 
eternity.  ..." 

Brown  replied  by  saying: 

"Governor,  I  have,  from  all  appearances,  not  more  than  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  the  start  of  you  in  the  journey  to  that  eternity  of  which 
you  kindly  warn  me;  and  whether  my  tenure  here  shall  be  fifteen 
months,  or  fifteen  days,  or  fifteen  hours,  I  am  equally  prepared  to  go. 
There  is  an  eternity  behind  and  an  eternity  before,  and  the  little 
speck  in  the  centre,  however  long,  is  but  comparatively  a  minute. 
The  difference  between  your  tenure  and  mine  is  trifling  and  I  want 
to  therefore  tell  you  to  be  prepared;  I  am  prepared.  You  all  [refer 
ring  to  slaveholders]  have  a  heavy  responsibility,  and  it  behooves 
you  to  prepare  more  than  it  does  me."  n 

There  was  a  passage  in  Governor  Wise's  speech  on  his 
arrival  in  Richmond  which  gave  great  offence  to  the  military, 
for  it  voiced  freely  and  frankly  his  own  bitterness  of  spirit 
that  it  was  left  to  United  States  marines  to  capture  nineteen 
raiders  upon  Virginia  soil.  In  it,  he  spoke  thus: 

"On  Monday  night  the  gallant  and  noble  Virginia  Colonel,  Robert 
Lee,  worthy  of  any  service  on  earth,  arrived  with  his  regular  corps 
of  marines.  He  waited  only  for  light.  Then  tendered  the  assault, 
in  State  pride,  to  the  Virginia  volunteers  who  were  there.  Their 


464  JOHN  BROWN 

feelings  for  the  prisoners  made  them  decline  the  risk  of  slaying  their 
own  friends,  and  Lee  could  not  delay  a  moment  to  retake  the  arsenal, 
punish  the  impudent  invaders  and  release  the  prisoners  at  the  neces 
sary  risk  of  their  own  lives.  His  gallantry  was  mortified  that  the 
task  was  so  easy.  .  .  .  With  mortification  and  chagrin  inexpres 
sible,  he  picked  twelve  marines  and  took  the  engine-house  in  ten 
minutes,  with  the  loss  of  one  marine  killed  and  one  wounded,  with 
out  hurting  a  hair  of  one  of  the  prisoners.  And  now  I  say  to  you  that 
I  would  have  given  my  right  arm  to  its  shoulder  for  that  feat  to  have 
been  performed  by  the  volunteers  of  Virginia  on  Monday  before  the 
marines  arrived  there.  But  there  was  no  cowardice  or  panic  on  the 
part  of  the  inhabitants  who  were  made  prisoners,  or  on  the  part  of 
the  volunteers  who  first  reached  the  scene.  .  .  ." 

The  matter  did  not  end  here.  Governor  Wise's  son,  O.  Jen 
nings  Wise,  who  gave  his  life  for  the  Confederacy  two  years 
later,  after  a  brief  career  of  undoubted  bravery,  preferred 
charges  against  Colonel  Robert  W.  Baylor,  the  colonel  of 
militia  cavalry  who  had  assumed  command  of  all  the  State 
forces  on  the  afternoon  of  Monday.  At  Colonel  Baylor's 
request,  a  court  of  inquiry  was  held  in  June,  1860,  but  it  failed 
to  touch  upon  the  real  point  at  issue,  —  Colonel  Baylor's 
behavior  on  October  17,  I85Q.72  Fearing  that  this  would  be 
the  case,  Jennings  Wise,  on  its  assembling,  wrote  to  the  court, 
which  apparently  ignored  his  letter,  that  Colonel  Baylor 
illegally  assumed  command  "contrary  to  his  grade  and  the 
nature  of  his  commission,"  acted  without  orders,  was  guilty 
of  cowardice  in  not  storming  the  engine  house,  and  of  "un- 
officerlike  conduct"  in  assigning  a  "false,  cowardly  and 
insulting  reason  for  not  leading  the  attack  on  the  engine 
house  when  the  service  was  offered  to  him  by  Colonel  Lee :  to- 
wit  .  .  .  that  it  was  a  duty  which  belonged  to  the  mercenaries 
of  the  regular  service  —  meaning  the  marines  —  who  were 
paid  for  it;"  and  finally  for  using  "violent  and  ungentlemanly 
language  about  his  commander-in-chief  [Governor  Wise]."73 

A  member  of  the  Shepherdstown  militia,  the  Hamtramck 
Guards,  charged  in  the  local  newspaper  that  his  company  was 
permitted  to  stand  idle  in  the  streets  from  the  time  of  the 
Martinsburg  company's  attack,  when  one  platoon  fired  a  few 
rounds  at  the  engine-house,  until  late  in  the  evening,  because 
of  the  captain's  inability  to  obtain  orders  from  Colonel 
Baylor.74  The  only  commands  given  during  the  evening,  he 


HIGH  TREASON   IN  VIRGINIA  465 

related,  "were  from  a  set  of  drunken  fellows  whooping  and 
bellowing  like  a  pack  of  maddened  bulls,  evidently  too  drunk, 
many  of  them,  to  hold  their  guns."  He  also  charged  that  the 
wounded  of  the  Martinsburg  company  were  shot  not  by  the 
raiders  but  by  their  own  men.  There  is  intrinsic  evidence  of 
the  accuracy  of  much  of  this  letter;  it  is  certainly  true  that, 
wherever  the  fault  lay,  no  effective  use  whatever  was  made 
of  the  Hamtramck  Guards  after  their  one  attack  upon  the 
engine  house.  From  the  adjoining  houses  they  could  have 
poured  in  a  deadly  fire. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  as  might  have  been  expected 
with  a  practically  paper  militia,  the  hastily  called-out  Vir 
ginia  soldiery  were  quite  unequal  to  the  task  set,  by  reason  of 
the  utter  inability  of  their  officers  to  control  and  direct  them 
and  to  keep  them  sober.  Throughout  the  entire  conflict,  there 
were  but  two  really  aggressive  movements,  —  the  taking  of  the 
bridge  by  the  Jefferson  Guards,  and  the  charge  of  the  Martins- 
burg  company.  Had  Colonel  Baylor  been  capable  of  aggres 
sive  leadership,  the  discredit  to  the  Virginia  arms  would  never 
have  taken  place.  But  there  was  no  concerted  action,  and  but 
little  intelligent  direction,  at  any  time  of  the  day,  after  the 
taking  of  the  bridge.  On  the  other  hand,  the  militia  compa 
nies,  like  those  so  hastily  organized,  were  inadequately  armed 
and  equipped,  and  the  presence  of  the  prisoners  with  the 
enemy  was  a  happy  excuse  to  cover  the  delays  and  hesita 
tions  of  the  afternoon.  For  this,  the  commanding  officer, 
Colonel  Baylor,  must  naturally  be  held  responsible.  It  was  the 
old  story,  so  soon  to  be  repeated  on  many  battlefields,  of 
excellent  military  material  ineffective  through  lack  of  disci 
pline  and  vigorous  leadership. 

For  all  of  Governor  Wise's  admiration  of  John  Brown  as 
a  man,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  describe  him  and  his  men 
as  "murderers,  traitors,  robbers,  insurrectionists,"  and  "wan 
ton,  malicious,  unprovoked  felons."  75  Yet  just  a  year  and  a 
half  later,  April  16,  1861,  Henry  A.  Wise,  then  out  of  office 
and  with  no  more  legal  authority  for  his  acts  than  had  John 
Brown,  actively  conspired  with  Captain  —  later  General 
—  J.  D.  Imboden,  General  Kenton  Harper  and  the  superin 
tendent,  Alfred  W.  Barbour,  and  through  them  captured  the 
Harper's  Ferry  arsenal  precisely  as  had  John  Brown,  save 


466  JOHN  BROWN 

that  there  was  no  loss  of  life.76  But  the  blow  was  none  the  less 
directly  aimed  at  the  Federal  Government.  The  undertaking 
of  this  act  of  treason  was  a  compelling  reason  for  the  passage 
of  the  Virginia  Ordinance  of  Secession  on  April  17,  1861. 
Governor  Wise  dramatically  announced  to  the  Secession  con 
vention  that  "armed  forces  are  now  moving  upon  Harper's 
Ferry  to  capture  the  arms  there  in  the  Arsenal  for  the  public 
defence,  and  there  will  be  a  fight  or  a  foot-race  between  vol 
unteers  of  Virginia  and  Federal  troops  before  the  sun  sets  this 
day."  77,t  On  June  I,  this  same  Henry  A.  Wise,  whose  abhor 
rence  of  John  Brown's  acts  had  been  so  profound,  in  a  speech 
at  Richmond  urged  his  neighbors  to:  "Get  a  spear  —  a  lance. 
Take  a  lesson  from  John  Brown,  manufacture  your  blades 
from  old  iron,  even  though  it  be  the  tires  of  your  cart-wheels." 78 
Forgetful,  too,  of  his  panegyric  of  his  Yankee  captive's  brav 
ery  and  coolness,  he  assured  his  auditors  that:  "Your  true- 
blooded  Yankee  will  never  stand  still  in  the  presence  of  cold 
steel."  In  so  scant  a  space  of  time  as  a  year  and  a  half  had  the 
erstwhile  Governor,  by  a  singular  revolution  of  the  wheel  of 
fate,  himself  come  to  occupy  the  position  of  a  rebel  against 
the  established  political  order. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW 

WITH  the  capture  of  John  Brown  an  accomplished  fact,  the 
military  were  free  to  take  account  of  what  had  happened,  and 
to  endeavor  to  ascertain  precisely  what  this  attack  upon  the 
peaceful  town  meant.1  In  the  morning,  a  Maryland  militia 
company,  the  Baltimore  Greys,  under  command  of  Lieut.- 
Col.  S.  S.  Mills,  of  the  Fifty-third  Maryland  Regiment,  visited 
the  school-house,  took  the  arms  there  deposited,  and  acquired 
some  of  John  Brown's  papers,  many  of  which  were  later 
regained  in  Baltimore,  after  considerable  trouble.2  Lieutenant 
Stuart  and  a  detachment  of  the  marines  were  then  sent,  early 
in  the  afternoon,  to  the  Kennedy  Farm,  to  bring  back  to  the 
arsenal  the  property  of  the  raiders.  They  did  not,  however, 
arrive  until  John  Brown's  dwelling,  so  recently  the  home  of 
high  hopes  and  philanthropic  ambitions,  had  been  ransacked 
by  curious  neighbors.  It  was  characteristic  of  John  Brown  that 
he  had  left  at  the  Farm,  undestroyed,  all  his  correspondence 
bearing  on  his  preparations  and  his  plans,  and  that  belonging 
to  his  men  as  well.*  Had  he  succeeded,  therefore,  in  gaining 
the  hills  and  beginning  his  guerrilla  raids,  his  enemy  would 
have  been  in  full  possession  of  his  purposes  and  of  the  names 
of  his  confederates  in  the  North.  The  Baltimore  troops  found 
Colonel  Washington's  wagon  and  its  scattered  horses,  with 
which  some  of  the  weapons  were  taken  to  the  armory.  Lieu 
tenant  Stuart  found  at  the  Farm  most  of  the  pikes,  which  were 
speedily  distributed  as  souvenirs,  and  for  months  thereafter 
were  hawked  about  with  so  ready  a  sale  as  to  lead  to  the 
manufacture  of  spurious  ones.3  Every  one  who  aided  in  mov- 

*  Hugh  Forbes  wrote  to  the  editor  of  the  Herald  on  October  27, 1859:  "When  I 
transmitted  to  Capt.  Brown  copies  of  all  my  correspondence  with  his  friends,  I 
never  dreamed  that  the  most  terrible  engine  of  destruction  which  he  would  carry 
with  him  in  his  campaign  would  be  a  carpet-bag  loaded  with  400  letters,  to  be 
turned  against  his  friends,  of  whom  the  journals  assert  that  more  than  forty-seven 
are  already  compromised." 


468  JOHN  BROWN 

ing  the  rifles  and  revolvers  likewise  helped  himself  to  some  as 
legitimate  spoils  of  war. 

Of  Cook,  the  only  one  of  the  escaped  raiders  of  whose  exist 
ence  the  victors  at  first  knew,  there  was  naturally  no  sign. 
He,  with  Owen  Brown,  Tidd,  Meriam  and  Barclay  Coppoc, 
had  spent  the  night  of  Monday  in  the  bushes  near  the  cabin 
of  the  Kennedy  Farm.  Here  they  lay  until  early  morning, 
when  the  last  one  of  the  negroes  whom  they  had  armed  and 
freed,  deserted  them  and  set  them  at  three  o'clock  to  climbing 
the  mountain  as  fast  as  their  load  of  arms  and  other  impedi 
menta  permitted.4  This  negro's  conduct  was  characteristic  of 
all  of  the  slaves  impressed  by  John  Brown.  They  followed  the 
orders  of  the  raiders  and  obeyed  them  to  the  extent  of  carry 
ing,  for  a  time,  arms  or  pikes,  and  doing  guard-duty.  When, 
however,  it  came  to  firing  in  the  engine  house,  or  to  accom 
panying  those  who  had  escaped,  they  refused  in  the  one  case 
to  attack  the  slaveholders,  and  in  the  other  they  chose  to  slip 
away  and  return  to  their  masters  with  tales  of  being  kept 
against  their  will,  rather  than  to  risk  their  lives  or  make  any 
effort  to  escape.5  The  great  uprising  among  the  blacks  upon 
which  John  Brown  counted  so  confidently  never  came  to  pass; 
the  thousands  of  reinforcements  he  looked  for  appeared  not 
at  all.  There  was  not  one  who  joined  of  his  own  accord;  of 
those  that  did  go  with  Brown,  a  negro  hired  by  Colonel  Wash 
ington  from  a  neighbor  was  found  drowned  in  the  river,  where 
some  thought  he  was  driven  by  citizens  in  an  attempt  to  run 
away,  while  others  held  that  he  was  shot  by  Cook.6  No  satis 
factory  explanation  of  his  death  was  ever  given.  M  r.  Allstad  t's 
negro,  Phil,  who  at  Brown's  orders  had  broken  loopholes  in 
the  engine-house  walls  for  the  raiders  to  fire  through,  was  taken 
to  the  jail  at  Charlestown,  where  he  died  of  pneumonia,  com 
plicated  by  very  great  fear.7  Otherwise,  the  negro  population 
was  unaffected  by  the  raid,  and  its  imperturbability,  when 
once  established,  went  far  toward  reassuring  the  South. 

Outraged  as  they  were  by  the  attack  on  their  homes,  the 
Harper's  Ferrians  and  the  whole  South  breathed  again  when 
they  realized  that  the  negroes  themselves  had  not  risen  in  the 
excitement  Brown  created.  "And  this  is  the  only  consolation 
1 1  have  to  offer  you  in  this  disgrace,"  said  Governor  Wise  in  his 
Richmond  speech,  "  that  the  faithful  slaves  refused  to  take  up 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  469 

arms  against  their  masters ;  and  those  who  were  taken  by  force 
from  their  happy  homes  deserted  their  liberators  as  soon  as 
they  could  dare  to  make  the  attempt.  Not  a  slave  around  was 
found  faithless."  Senator  Mason  likewise  rejoiced  at  this. 
4 'On  the  part  of  the  negroes,"  he  stated  in  a  signed  resume 
of  his  own  investigation  of  the  raid  issued  to  the  press  im 
mediately  thereafter,8  "it  is  certain  that  the  only  emotion 
evinced  by  them  was  of  alarm  and  terror,  and  their  only  refuge 
sought  at  their  masters'  homes."  The  negro  who  deserted 
Cook's  party,  in  the  early  morning  hours  of  Tuesday,  went 
down  to  the  Ferry  and  informed  the  authorities  that  Cook 
was  there  in  the  mountain,9  just  as  Cook's  party  had  fore 
seen  that  he  would.  A  vigorous,  organized  pursuit  would 
doubtless  have  run  Cook  to  earth  at  once;  but  they  being 
ignorant  of  how  many  of  the  raiders  were  at  large,  nothing 
was  done  by  either  the  Maryland  or  Virginia  military. 

The  scenes  of  Tuesday  evening  at  Harper's  Ferry  were  for 
tunately  recorded  by  an  able  Northern  witness,  Joseph  G. 
Rosengarten,  a  director  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,10  who 
strayed  by  accident  into  Harper's  Ferry  during  the  riot,  and, 
being  near  Captain  Turner  when  he  was  killed,  was  promptly 
marched  off  to  spend  the  night  in  the  Charlestown  jail  as  a 
suspect.  Being  released  the  next  day  through  the  interces 
sion  of  Governor  Wise,  he  returned  to  Harper's  Ferry  in  time 
to  see  the  immediate  aftermath  of  the  raid.  Of  it  he  records: 

"  Night  soon  came,  and  it  was  made  hideous  by  the  drunken  noise 
and  turmoil  of  the  crowd  in  the  village;  matters  were  made  worse, 
too,  by  the  Governor's  orders  to  impress  all  the  horses;  and  the 
decent,  sober  men  trudged  home  rather  out  of  humor  with  their 
patriotic  sacrifice;  while  the  tipsy  and  pot-valiant  militia  fought  and 
squabbled  with  each  other,  and  only  ceased  that  sport  to  pursue 
and  hunt  down  some  fugitive  negroes  and  one  or  two  half-maddened 
drunken  fellows  who,  in  their  frenzy  proclaimed  themselves  John 
Brown's  men.  Tired  out  at  last,  the  Governor  took  refuge  in  the 
Wager  House;  —  for  an  hour  or  two,  he  had  stood  on  the  porch 
haranguing  an  impatient  crowd  as  'Sons  of  Virginia!'  Within  doors 
the  scene  was  stranger  still.  Huddled  together  .  .  .  the  Governor 
and  his  staff  at  a  table  with  tallow  candles  guttering  in  the  darkness, 
the  Richmond  Grays  lying  around  the  floor  in  picturesque  and 
(then)  novel  pursuit  of  soft  planks,  a  motley  audience  was  gathered 
together  to  hear  the  papers  captured  at  John  Brown's  house  —  the 
Kennedy  Farm  on  Maryland  Heights  —  read  out  with  the  Gov- 


470  JOHN  BROWN 

ernor's  running  comments.  The  purpose  of  all  this  was  plain  enough. 
It  was  meant  to  serve  as  proof  of  a  knowledge  and  instigation  of  the 
raid  by  prominent  persons  and  party-leaders  in  the  North.  The 
most  innocent  notes  and  letters,  commonplace  newspaper  para 
graphs  and  printed  cuttings,  were  distorted  and  twisted  by  the 
reading  and  by  the  talking  into  clear  instructions  and  positive 
plots." 

Wednesday  morning  there  took  place  the  transfer  of  the 
prisoners  by  train  to  Charles  town.  They  were  well  guarded  by 
Lieutenant  Israel  Green  and  some  of  his  men,  and  were  in  the 
joint  charge  of  the  sheriff  of  Jefferson  County  and  the  United 
States  marshal  of  the  Western  District  of  Virginia.  Governor 
Wise,  Senator  Mason  and  other  prominent  men  accompanied 
them.11  The  removal  to  the  train  occurred  under  circum 
stances  which  thoroughly  warranted  the  using  of  the  marines 
as  a  guard,  instead  of  a  local  militia  company.  Stevens  and 
Brown  had  to  be  taken  to  the  station  in  a  wagon;  Shields 
Green  and  Coppoc  walked  between  files  of  soldiers  and  were 
followed  by  hundreds  of  highly  excited  men.  As  the  proces 
sion  reached  the  train,  the  mob  gathered  menacingly,  cry 
ing,  "Lynch  them!  Lynch  them!"  Governor  Wise  called  out, 
"Oh,  it  would  be  cowardly  to  do  so  now!"  The  crowd  then 
fell  back,  and  the  prisoners  were  safely  placed  on  the  train.12 
Most  of  the  militia  had  already  returned  to  their  homes,  and 
with  but  one  company  on  duty  after  the  departure  of  the 
prisoners,13  the  town  rapidly  quieted  down,  and  Colonel  Lee 
felt  free  to  move  about  as  he  pleased. 

When,  therefore,  news  came  at  nine  o'clock  that  evening 
from  the  village  of  Pleasant  Valley,  Maryland,  that  a  body  of 
men  at  sunset  had  descended  from  the  mountains,  attacked 
the  house  of  a  settler  and  massacred  him,  his  wife  and  chil 
dren,  Lee,  accompanied  by  Lieutenants  Green  and  Stuart, 
hastened  with  twenty-five  marines  to  the  outraged  hamlet, 
four  or  five  miles  away,  only  to  find  everything  quiet  and  the 
massacred  family  sound  asleep.14  He  returned  with  his  party 
in  plenty  of  time  to  embark  with  all  the  marines  shortly  after 
midnight  upon  the  train  for  Washington.  Here  Colonel  Lee 
handed  in  a  written  report  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  in  igno 
rance,  however,  of  the  fact  that  just  twenty-four  hours  before 
his  visit  there,  five  escaping  raiders  had  descended  from  the 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  471 

mountains  into  Pleasant  Valley,  and  had  heard  cries  of  alarm 
which  made  them  wrongfully  believe  that  they  were  discov 
ered.  After  incredible  hardships,  all  but  Cook  of  this  party 
of  five  safely  reached  the  North.15  Of  the  other  raiders  who 
got  away  from  Harper's  Ferry,  Hazlett  was  taken  and  Ander 
son  escaped.  Had  Cook  and  Hazlett  not  exposed  themselves 
because  of  hunger,  they,  too,  would  have  reached  safety.  Tidd 
reported  afterward  in  person  to  Thomas  Wentworth  Hig- 
ginson,  that  his  experiences  while  escaping  had  convinced 
him  that  "twenty- five  men  in  the  mountains  of  Virginia 
could  paralyze  the  whole  business  of  the  South,  and  nobody 
could  take  them."  It  was  the  best  guerrilla  country  in  the 
world,  in  his  opinion,  —  all  crags  and  laurel-bushes.  There 
was  no  attempt,  he  pointed  out,  to  pursue  him  and  his  com 
rades  in  the  mountains;  the  man-hunters  invariably  kept  to 
the  roads.  Their  inability  to  travel  directly  made  the  fugi 
tives  cover  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  in  going  to  Cham- 
bersburg,  only  forty-five  miles  away  as  the  bird  flies,  and  they 
were  gravely  handicapped  by  Meriam's  weakness  and  ina 
bility  to  go  more  than  a  mile  or  so  without  resting. 

When  John  Brown  was  lodged  in  the  Charlestown  jail, 
he  had  every  reason  for  thanksgiving  that  his  life  had  been 
spared.  Not  that  he  was  under  any  illusion  as  to  the  precari- 
ousness  of  his  position ;  he  realized  perfectly  that  the  sands  of 
time  had  nearly  run  out  for  him,  and  that  his  captors  were 
certain  to  make  every  effort  to  take  his  life  by  due  process 
of  law.  He  was  quick  to  perceive,  as  were  his  friends  in  the 
North,  what  rare  good  fortune  it  had  been  that  Lieutenant 
Green's  blade  was  so  ineffective,  for,  had  John  Brown  fallen  in 
the  engine  house,  the  whole  raid  must  needs  have  been  a  few 
days'  wonder  and  then  have  been  forgotten.  Deprived  of  their 
leader,  the  fate  of  Stevens,  Shields  Green  and  Edwin  Coppoc 
could  only  have  mildly  interested  the  country.  Unknown 
marauders,  they  must  have  perished  with  but  few  voices  of 
sympathy  raised  in  their  behalf.  Thanks  to  the  chief's  sur 
vival,  and  to  the  discovery  of  his  friendship  with  prominent 
Abolitionists  and  Republicans  in  high  political  positions,  the 
Harper's  Ferry  entente  assumed  at  once  national  proportions. 
The  Democratic  pro-slavery  press  of  the  North  lost  no  time 
in  seizing  upon  the  raid  to  discredit  the  "  Black  Republicans" 


472  JOHN  BROWN 

of  all  degrees.  In  their  columns,  John  Brown's  deeds  were,  if 
anything,  magnified,  in  order  to  let  the  country  understand 
just  how  culpable  were  Senator  Seward,  Congressman  Gid- 
dings,  Horace  Greeley,  Gerrit  Smith  and  many  others.  The 
New  York  Herald  was  particularly  violent  in  its  attacks  on 
Smith  and  Seward;  the  latter  was  the  "arch  agitator  who 
is  responsible  for  this  insurrection,"  whom  it  wished  to  see 
hanged  in  place  of  Brown.16  Him  it  characterized  as  one  "ren 
dered  daring,  reckless  and  an  abolition  monomaniac  by  the 
scenes  of  violence  and  blood  through  which  he  had  passed." 
"He  has  met,"  the  Herald  declared,  "with  the  fate  which  he 
courted ;  but  his  death  and  the  punishment  of  all  his  criminal 
associates  will  be  as  a  feather  in  the  balance  against  the  mis 
chievous  consequences  which  will  probably  follow  from  the 
rekindling  of  the  slavery  excitement  in  the  South."  17 
^jfhe  Republican  press  was  at  first  inclined  to  discredit  the 
whole  episode,  or  to  dismiss  it  as  the  work  of  a  madman.  In 
this  the  Tribune  took  the  lead,  saying  on  Tuesday  that  the 
extraordinary  happening  in  Harper's  Ferry  was  attributed 
to  negroes  and  Abolitionists.  "But,  as  negroes  are  not  abun 
dant  in  that  part  of  Virginia,  while  no  Abolitionists  were 
ever  known  to  peep  in  that  quarter,  we  believe  the  nature  of 
the  affair  must  be  grossly  misapprehended."  The  next  day  it 
spoke  of  the  raid  thus :  ' '  The  whole  affair  seems  the  work  of  a 
madman,  but  John  Brown  has  so  often  looked  death  serenely 
in  the  face  that  what  seems  madness  to  others  doubtless  wore 
a  different  aspect  to  him."  The  Cleveland  Leader  sought. to 
minimize  the  whole  affair  in  tKisTwise:  "  But  for  the  loss  of  life 
attending  the  foray  of  tfie  crazy  Brown  among  the  Virginians, 
the  whole  thing  would  be  positively  ridiculous,  and  it  is  fast  be 
coming  so  even  with  the  frightened  chivalry  themselves.  The 
eccentric  Governor  Wise,  as  reported,  by  telegraph,  has  so  far 
recovered  from  his  fright  under  the  backing  of  Virginia,  Mary 
land  and  United  States  troops,  that  he  has  ventured  to  pitch 
into  the  Harper's  Ferry  cowards  in  rather  sharper  than  his 
usual  sarcastic  style."  18  The^Hartford  Evening  Press  con 
sidered  Brown  a  poor,  demented  old  man;  the  calamity,  It 
believed,  would  never  have  occurred  had  tHere  been  no  lawless 
and  criminal  invasion  of  Kansas.19  To  the  St.  Louis  Evening 
News  the  raid  was  the  freak  of  madmen,  ending  in  humiliating 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  473 

discomfiture.20  To  the  Topeka,  Kansas,  Tribune  the  foray 
seemed  like  "the  wild  scheme  of  a  bad  man  who,  seeking  for 
personal  distinction  (not  fame)  and,  perhaps,  plunder,  was 
ready  to  endanger  the  lives  of  thousands,  perhaps  even  the 
existence  of  the  State;  for,  had  he  succeeded,  had  he  dis 
tributed  the  arms  he  possessed  in  the  armory,  what  hand, 
what  mind  could  have  guided  the  wild  mass  his  mind  had 
crazed  and  his  hand  had  clothed  with  the  instruments  of 
death?"21  The  Atchison  City,  Kansas,  Freedom's  Champion 
recognized  that  "this  madman  has  met  a  tragic  end  at  last. 
An  insane  effort  to  accomplish  what  none  but  a  madman 
would  attempt,  has  resulted  as  any  one  but  a  madman  would 
have  foreseen,  in  death,  to  all  who  were  engaged  in  it."  22 

The_politically  independent  Liberator,  mouthpiece  of  the 
most  radical,  but  at  the  same  time  the  non-resistant  wing  of 
the  Abolitionists,  who  were  ever  counselling  the  negroes  not 
to  rise  in  revolt  or  to  use  force  to  right  their  wrongs,  thus 
commented  on  the  first  news  from  Harper's  Ferry : 

"The  particulars  of  a  misguided,  wild,  and  apparently  insane, 
though  disinterested  and  well  intended  effort  by  insurrection  to 
emancipate  the  slaves  in  Virginia,  under  the  leadership  of  Capt.  John, 
alias  'Ottawatomie*  Brown,  may  be  found  on  our  third  page.  Our 
views  of  war  and  bloodshed,  even  in  the  best  of  causes,  are  too  well 
known  to  need  repeating  here;  but  let  no  one  who  glories  in  the 
revolutionary  struggle  of  1776,  deny  the  right  of  the  slaves  to  imi 
tate  the  example  of  our  fathers." : 

In  its  next  issue  it  described  the  comments  of  the  lead 
ing  Democratic  and  Republican  newspapers  as  characterized 
"by  an  equal  mixture  of  ferocity  and  cowardice."  Gradually 
however,  the  Republican  prpgg  rqme  to  see  in  the  affray  jus 
retribution  for  the  Southls  policy  of  violence  in  Kansas,  and 
perfectly  inevitable  protest  against  the  wickedness  of  slave 
The  opportunity'to  make  a  martyr  of  John  Brown,  to  let  him 
typify  the  protest  of  increasing  hundreds  ot  thousands  against 
human  bondage,  they  soon  made  use  ot  to  the  tullest  extent. 
John  Brown's  own  attitude,  his  nobility  ot  spirit  and  readi 
ness  tor  hisjsacnfice,  were  of  enormous  aid.  1  he  political 
Opportunity  his  martyrdom  offered  was  not  neglected.  "Al 
ready  the  Black  Republican  press  has  commenced  to  apolo- 


474  JOHN  BROWN 

gize  for  him,"  said  the  Portage,  Ohio,  Weekly  Sentinel  of  Octo 
ber  26. 

"They  say  that  exasperated  by  wrongs  done  him  in  Kansas  he 
was  driven  to  madness.  They  say  he  reasoned  thus, '  that  the  slave 
drivers  tried  to  put  down  Freedom  in  Kansas  by  force  of  arms  and 
he  would  try  to  put  down  Slavery  in  Virginia  by  the  same  means.' 
Thus  is  the  '  irrepressible  conflict '  of  Seward  and  Smith  and  Gid- 
dings,  and  the  Black  Republican  party,  carried  out  practically  by  a 
bold,  bad,  desperate  man.  Who  is  responsible  for  this?  Not  Brown, 
for  he  is  mad ;  but  they,  who  by  their  countenance  and  pecuniary 
aid  have  induced  him  thus  to  resort  to  arms  to  carry  out  their 
political  schemes,  must  answer  to  the  country  and  the  world  for  this 
fearfully  significant  outbreak." 

;-,   The  New  York  Abend-Zeitung  declared  that: 

"Brown  and  his  companions  made  themselves  MARTYRS  OF  A 
CAUSE  IN  ITSELF  noble ;  and,  although  the  mode  in  which  they  sought 
to  advance  it  was  not  adapted  to  the  end  proposed,  we  still  cannot 
refuse  our  respect  for  the  self-sacrificing  zeal  with  which  they  of 
fered  up  their  lives  for  it.{  WE  HAVE  NO  REPROOF  TO  OFFER  BROWN, 
EXCEPT  this,  that  the  way  in  which  he  set  to  work  hindered  rather 
than  forwarded  his  plans."24 

The  South  itself  was  compelled  to  admiration  by  Brown's 
manly  bearing  under  fire  and  in  adversity,  as  had  been  Gov 
ernor  Wise  and  the  other  eye-witnesses  at  Harper's  Ferry.* 
Its  leaders  had,  heretofore,  been  on  the  offensive;  theirs  was 
the  successful  war  with  Mexico ;  theirs  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
the  attempt  to  conquer  Kansas ;  theirs  the  control  of  the  Fed 
eral  Government,  which  they  bent  to  their  will.  Here  now  was 
the  North  deliberately  invading  their  soil  and  assailing  their 
sacred  institution,  and  though  it  filled  them  with  horror  and 
anger,  at  least  they  had  to  admit  that  besides  its  daring,  its 
reckless  folly,  the  raid  did  not  lack  a  .certain  consistency.  No 
longer  could  they  taunt  the  Abolition  North  with  lacking  the 
courage  of  its  opinions ;  no  longer  could  they  say  that  the  New 
England  lover  of  the  negro  was  too  fond  of  his  skin  to  risk  it 
in  the  South.  It  was  a  cry  of  anxious  rage  that  went  up.  Would 

*  Describing  John  Brown's  appearance  as  he  lay  founded  before  him,  Gov 
ernor  Wise  once  said  that  he  likened  his  attitude  to  nothing  but  "a  broken- winged 
hawk  lying  upon  his  back,  with  fearless  eye,  and  talons  set  for  further  fight  if 
need  be."  —  John  S.  Wise,  The  End  of  an  Erat  p.  132.  / 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  '475 

the  very  news  of  the  raid  put  the  word  "insurrection  "  into  the 
minds  of  the  millions  held  in  bondage  from  Harper's  Ferry 
to  the  Gulf?  How  many  imitators  of  John  Brown  would 
appear,  to  seek  revenge  for  his  failure?  Then,  as  the  South 
discovered  the  North's  readiness  to  lionize,  even  in  some 
quarters  to  deify  Brown,  its  anger  increased.  To  them  he  was 
a  fanatic  who  sought  not  only  to  steal  cherished  property,  but 
to  establish  anarchy,  to  reenact  the  Nat  Turner  horrors,  to 
make  the  terrible  scenes  of  the  Haytian  negro  revolt  insignifi 
cant  beside  the  atrocities  he  would  set  on  foot.*  That  such 
a  man  could  be  likened  to  the  Saviour,  and  be  considered  a 
direct  instrument  of  the  Almighty,  was  maddening  far  beyond 
the  actual  outrage.  The  killing  of  Beckham  and  other  unof 
fending  citizens  was  surely  murder,  plain  and  simple.  To  ap 
plaud  it,  to  describe  it  as  an  act  especially  pleasing  to  the 
Deity,  was  to  argue  one's  self  morally  defective,  of  a  criminal 
spirit,  and  so  bitterly  hostile  to  the  injured  and  innocent 
people  of  the  South  as  to  make  more  than  one  person  come 
to  John  Brown's  views  that  the  issue  between  the  two  sections 
had  passed  beyond  the  possibility  of  peaceable  settlement. 
^Mr.  William  Hand  Browne  has  recently  well  characterized 
the  Southern  attitude  in  the  following  passage: 

"But  the  atrocious  attempt  of  lohn  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry 
came  like  a  fire  bell  in  the  night.  (The  attempt  itself  might  have 
been  considered  merely  the  deed  of  a  few  fanatical  desperadoes,  but 
for  the  universal  uproar  of  enthusiastic  approbation  that  burst  out 
at  the  North.  Doubtless  there  were  many  who  abhorred  the  idea  of 
midnight  massacre;  but  their  voices  were  drowned  in  what  seemed 
to  be  a  universal  chorus  of  applause,  mingled  with  regrets  that  the 
assassins  had  not  succeeded  in  their  purpose.  The  South  could  not 
be  blamed  for  supposing  that  the  North  had  passed  from  the  stage 
of  political  antagonism  to  that  of  furious  personal  hate."  25  f 

Said  the  Richmond  Enquirer  of  October  25,  1859: 

*  " Nothing,"  declared  the  London  Times  of  November  2,  1859,  "but  sickening 
and  bootless  slaughter  could  come  of  it  [the  raid].  First  the  slaughter  of  white 
families  by  their  slaves,  and  then  the  bloody  revenge  of  the  exasperated  masters." 
It  correctly  observed,  however,  that  "the  state  of  society  which  causes  such  a 
scheme  to  be  formed  and  carried  out  is  not  the  less  threatening."  i 

t  "The  conviction  became  common  in  the  South  that  John  Brown  differed 
from  the  majority  of  Northerners  merely  in  the  boldness  and  desperation  of  his 
methods."  —  Frederic  Bancroft,  Life  of  William  H.  Seward,  pp.  497-498. 


476  JOHN  BROWN 

"The  Harper's  Ferry  invasion  has  advanced  the  cause  of  Dis 
union  more  than  any  other  event  that  has  happened  since  the  for 
mation  of  the  Government;  it  has  rallied  to  that  standard  men 
who  formerly  looked  upon  it  with  horror;  it  has  revived  with  tenfold 
strength  the  desires  of  a  Southern  Confederacy.  The,  heretofore, 
most  determined  friends  of  the  Union  may  now  be  heard  saying,  'if 
under  the  form  of  a  Confederacy,  our  peace  is  disturbed,  our  State 
invaded,  its  peaceful  citizens  cruelly  murdered,  and  all  the  horrors 
of  servile  war  forced  upon  us,  by  those  who  should  be  our  warmest 
friends;  if  the  form  of  a  Confederacy  is  observed,  but  the  spirit  vio 
lated,  and  the  people  of  the  North  sustain  the  outrage,  then  let  disunion 


This  same  newspaper  noted  with  satisfaction  that  what 
it  called  the  conservative,  that  is,  the  pro-slavery  press  of 
the  North,  "evinces  a  determination  to  make  the  moral  of 
the  Harper's  Ferry  invasion  an  effective  weapon  to  rally  all 
men  not  fanatics  against  that  party  whose  leaders  have  been 
implicated  directly  with  the  midnight  murder  of  Virginia 
citizens  and  the  destruction  of  government  property."  But 
the  attempt  to  use  the  acts  of  extreme  Abolitionists  to  make 
capital  against  them  was  an  old  political  game.  Southern 
politicians  had  long  been  indulging  in  it,  yet  the  cause  of  the 
anti-slavery  men  had  steadily  progressed.  In  this  case,  too, 
the  John  Brown  raid,  though  it  appeared  at  first  a  severe 
injury  to  the  Republicans,  did  them  little  harm.  The  Novem 
ber  elections  were  favorable  to  the  new  party,  even  though 
their  vote  fell  off  in  certain  places.  Horace  Greeley  correctly 
foresaw  that  the  ultimate  effect  of  the  raid  would  be  bene 
ficial.  "It  will  drive  the  slave  power  to  new  outrages,"  he 
wrote.  ^It  presses  on  the  'irrepressible  conflict,'  and  I  think 
the  end  of  slavery  in  Virginia  and  the  Union  is  ten  years 
nearer  than  it  seemed  a  few  weeks  ago.'^J/tndeed,  the  raid 
revealed  to  many  besides  John  Brown  that  there  was  to  be 
a  bloody  conflict  on  a  far  greater  scale;  and  no  student  of 
this  period  can  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  prevision  of  com 
ing  events  given  to  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  on  both  sides. 

When  the  iron  door  of  his  cell  had  been  slammed  behind 
John  Brown,  the  State  authorities  discovered  that  a  trial 
speedy  enough  to  satisfy  the  anger  of  Virginia  was,  by  chance, 
a  possibility.  The  Grand  Jury  was  in  session,  and  the  semi 
annual  term  of  the  Circuit  Court,  over  which  Judge  Richard 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  477 

Parker,  of  Winchester,  presided,  had  begun.  The  Virginia  l 
statutes  then  required  that  "when  an  indictment  is  found 
against  a  person  for  felony,  in  a  court  wherein  he  may  be 
tried,  the  accused,  if  in  custody,  shall,  unless  good  cause  be 
shown  for  a  continuance,  be  arraigned  and  tried  in  the  same 
term."27  Nothing,  it  was  felt,  could  so  quickly  allay  the  ex 
citement  among  the  whites  and  blacks  alike  as  to  send  these 
men  to  the  gallows.  If  this  law  were  not  obeyed,  and  the 
case  were  continued,  there  could  be  no  trial  until  the  follow 
ing  April;  during  these  six  months  the  State  would  be  in  a 
ferment  and  some  militia  would  have  to  be  underarms.  There\ 
arose,  however,  the  question  of  jurisdiction^_ghould  John 
Brown  be  turned  over  to  the  United  States?  Some  of  his  of-V 
fences  had  been  committed  on  United  States  property,  and 
the  Federal  courts  could,  therefore,  take  cognizance  of  them. 
Here  was  an  opportunity  to  place  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  in  the  position  of  prosecutor  of  these  Abolitionists,  of 
which,  it  seems  to-day,  Governor  Wise  should  have  availed 
himself  for  strategic  reasons.  To  embroil  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  might  well  have  seemed  most  tempting  to  the  slave- 
power.  But  Governor  Wise  and  his  associates,  exceedingly 
fehrewd  politicians,  finally  decided  otherwise.  The  Federal 
courts,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  not  then  as  important  as 
to-day ;  the  nearest  Federal  prison  was  at  some  distance,  and 
Wise  had  no  desire  to  have  it  said  that  the  State  of  Virginia 
was  forced  to  hide  behind  the  skirts  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment,  and  to  obtain  its  help  to  punish  those  who  violated 
her  soil  and  killed  her  citizens.28 

None  the  less,  Governor  Wise  vacillated  for  some  time, 
particularly  when  it  came  to  trying  Brown's  companions. 
Thus  on  November  7  he  telegraphed  to  Andrew  Hunter: 
"You  had  better  try  Cooke  and  turn  Stephens  [Stevens]  over 
to  the  United  States  Court.  Do  that  definitely."  29  His  and 
Hunter's  position  at  this  time  is  explained  by  a  letter  of 
Hunter's,  dated  five  days  earlier: 

"  I  have  seen  your  letter  to  Gov.  Willard  and  am  considering  the 
suggestion  as  to  transferring  one  of  the  prisoners  to  the  Federal 
authorities.  It  strikes  me  very  favorably  but  I  have  not  yet  con 
ferred  with  the  Judge,  and  as  neither  of  the  murders,  that  is,  as  to 
the  death  of  the  victims,  except  the  Marine,  occurred  on  the  Govern- 


478  JOHN  BROWNj 

ment  property,  one  must  consider  carefully  how  far  the  prisoner 
transferred  can  be  certainly  convicted  in  the  Federal  Court,  par 
ticularly  Cooke,  who  is  the  only  white  prisoner  we  have  left  except 
Stephens.  Our  State  Court,  of  course,  has  no  power  to  summon 
Forbes  from  N.  York  .  .  .  and  this  renders  it  the  more  important 
to  send  one  of  the  scoundrels  to  Uncle  Sam,  in  order  to  get  at  the 
greater  villains  implicated  who  are  still  out  of  our  reach."  30 

On  November  7,  Hunter  announced  in  court,  amid  a  great 
sensation,  that  Stevens  would  be  given  up  to  the  United 
States;  that  Virginia  was  now  after  " higher  and  wickeder 
game."  31  Yet  in  December  the  hunt  for  the  greater  prey  was 
abandoned.  When,  on  December  15,  President  Buchanan  in 
quired  by  telegraph  whether  Stevens  had  been  turned  over  to 
the  United  States,  Andrew  Hunter  replied:  "Stephens  has 
not  been  delivered  to  the  authorities  of  the  United  States. 
Undetermined  as  yet  whether  he  will  be  tried  here."  32 

On  hearing  of  this  query  from  the  President,  Governor 
Wise,  on  December  18,  exactly  reversed  his  position  of  six 
weeks  earlier,  in  this  message  to  Andrew  Hunter: 

"In  reply  to  yours  of  the  I5th  I  say  definitively  that  Stephens 
ought  not  to  be  handed  over  to  the  Federal  authorities  for  trial. 
...  I  hope  you  informed  the  President  of  the  status  of  his  case 
before  the  court.  I  am  convinced  that  there  is  a  political  design  in 
trying  now  to  have  him  tried  before  the  Federal  courts.  He  will  not 
be  delivered  up  with  my  consent."  33 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  what  the  political  conspiracy 
was  which  Governor  Wise  then  thought  he  scented.  But  the 
chief  reason  for  the  change  of  policy  in  regard  to  Stevens's 
trial  was  the  appointment,  on  December  14,  of  a  committee 
of  investigation  of  the  United  States  Senate,  consisting  of 
three  pro-slavery  Senators  and  two  from  the  North,  headed 
by  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia.  As  this  committee  was  avow 
edly  appointed  to  strike  at  the  "higher  and  wickeder"  vil 
lains,  the  special  reason  for  having  one  trial  in  a  United  States 
court  —  the  examining  of  the  Northern  friends  and  backers 
of  Brown,  and  of  the  Republican  leaders — had  disappeared.34 
Hunter  and  Wise  found  it  easy  to  show  that  Stevens  had  not 
actually  been  turned  over  to  the  Federal  authorities,  though 
his  trial  in  November  in  Judge  Parker's  court  had  been  in 
terrupted  for  that  express  purpose.  Against  this  unjust  and 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW 


479 


hurtful  vacillation  with  Stevens,  his  counsel  argued  and  pro 
tested  in  vain.36  He  was  tried  and  sentenced  to  death  in 
Charlestown.  ^ 

John  Brown  was  put  on  trial  for  his  life  before  Judge  RicnK 
ard  Parker,36  in  the  court-house  at  Charlestown,  on  October  ^  V 
25,  one  week  after  his  capture.  That  so  brief  an  interval  on] 
should  have  elapsed  between  crime  and  trial  created  an  un 
favorable  impression  in  the  North.  In  the  excitement  of  the 
hour,  high-minded  men  and  women  forgot  that,  through  John 
Brown's  agency,  Beckham,  Turner,  Boerley  and  Hayward 
had  been  killed  without  warning;  they  complained  that  Vir 
ginia  was  mercilessly  and  inhumanly  rushing  him  to  the  gal 
lows  ;  that  his  being  done  to  death  was  a  foregone  conclusion ; 
and  finally  that  Virginia  had  gone  mad  with  fright.  Fear 
there  undoubtedly  was  at  Charlestown  and  Richmond  that 
this  was  but  the  beginning  of  extensive  hostilities  between 
North  and  South ;  the  letters  which  now  began  to  pour  in  on 
Governor  Wise  convinced  him,  as  will  be  seen  later,  that  there 
was  a  widespread  conspiracy,  of  which  the  raid  was  only  a 
part.  To  him  it  made  no  difference  that  John  Brown's  wounds 
were  not  yet  healed,  for  they  were  at  worst  superficial.  But 
that  they  were  still  unhealed,  intensified  the  feeling  of  out 
rage  in  the  North.  That  John  Brown  heard  his  arraignment, 
lying  on  a  cot  at  the  bar,  deeply  stirred  Northern  newspaper- 
readers,  as  did  the  fact  that  Stevens  had  to  be  carried  into 
court.  Lydia  Maria  Child  wrote  to  Governor  Wise  that  she  did 
not  know  of  a  single  person  who  would  have  approved  of  the 
raid,  if  he  had  been  apprised  of  John  Brown's  intention  in  ad-_ 
vance.  "But,"  she  added,  "I  and  thousands  of  others  feel  a 
natural  impulse  of  sympathy  for  the  brave  and  suffering  man." 
.  .  .  He  needs  a  mother  and  sister  to  dress  his  wounds,  and 
speak  soothingly  to  him.  Will  you  allow  me  to  perform  that 
mission  of  humanity?"37  To  this  Governor  Wise  responded 
that  he  knew  of  no  reason  why  she  should  not  minister  to 
John  Brown,  for  he  would  permit  no  woman  to  be  insulted, 
even  if  she  came  to  minister  to  "one  who  whetted  knives  of 
butchery  for  our  mothers,  sisters,  daughters,  and  babes."88* 

*  "Do  not  allow  Mrs.  Child  to  visit  B.  He  does  not  wish  it  because  the  infu 
riated  populace  will  have  new  suspicions  aroused  &  great  excitement  and  inju 
rious  results  are  certain.  He  is  comfortable.  Has  all  his  wants  supplied  kindly, 


480  JOHN  BROWN 

The  Lawrence,   Kansas,  Republican  voiced  the  sentiments 
of  many  Northerners  in  saying: 

"  We  defy  an  instance  to  be  shown  in  a  civilized  community  where 
a  prisoner  has  been  forced  to  trial  for  his  life,  when  so  disabled  by 
sickness  or  ghastly  wounds  as  to  be  unable  even  to  sit  up  during  the 
proceedings,  and  compelled  to  be  carried  to  the  judgment  hall  upon 
a  litter.  .  .  .  Such  a  proceeding  shames  the  name  of  justice,  and 
only  finds  a  congenial  place  amid  the  records  of  the  bloody  Inquisi- 


It  was  no  answer  to  this,  the  Republican  thought,  to  say 
that  the  Virginia  public  was  too  wrought  up  to  admit  of 
delay.  That  there  was  intense  popular  excitement  was  the 
best  of  reasons  why  delay  should  have  been  granted,  that  the 
trial  might  proceed  with  due  calm  and  deliberation.  "And 
what  a  comment  upon  the  state  of  society  engendered  by 
slavery  is  it  that  the  peace  and  safety  of  a  community  of 
twenty  thousand  population  is  endangered  by  the  prisoned, 
bolted  and  barred  presence  of  a  sick  and  wounded  old  man." 39 

Even  the  New  York  Herald  had  to  admit  the  obvious  signs 

prfcnnprg.  Horace  Greelev.  m  the 
first  wrote  on  October  25  :~~  ^ 

"As  the  Grand  Jury  of  Jefferson  County  ...  is  already  in  session, 
the  trial  of  Brown  and  his  confederates  may  be  expected  to  take 
place  at  once,  unless  delay  should  be  granted  to  prepare  for  trial,  or  a 
change  of  venue  to  some  leV  excited  county  should  be  asked  for. 
Neither  of  these  is  probable.  kThe  prisoners  in  fact  have  no  defence, 
and  their  case  will  probably  T>e  speedily  disposed  of.  |We  trust  the 
whole  proceeding  may  partake  of  the  same  spirit  of  decency ^pft^ 
priefc^,  and  respect  for  the  law,  and  the  rights  of  the  prisoners, 
which  characterizes  the  charge  given  by  the  presiding  Judge  to  the 
Grand  Jury/>- 

Later",  however,  the  Tribune  felt  that  the  trial  was  unfair 
because,  among  other  reasons,  Brown  was  not  allowed  the 
time  and  opportunity  to  make  a  full  and  complete  defence 

and  is  not  sick  enough  to  be  nursed.  He  don't  want  women  there  to  unman  his 
heroic  determination  to  maintain  a  firm  and  consistent  composure.  KEEP  MRS. 
CHILD  away  at  all  hazards.  Brown  and  associates  will  certainly  be  lynched  if  she 
goes  there.  This  ought  to  be  shown  to  Mr.  Andrew  and  others,  but  no  public 
exhibition."  —  Thus  wrote  George  H.  Hoyt,  John  Brown's  lawyer,  to  J.  W.  Le 
Barnes.  (Original  in  the  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections.)  Mrs.  Child  did 
not  go  to  Virginia. 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  481 

to  the  multifarious  charges  brought  against  him.40  The  Bos 
ton  Transcript  went  so  far  as  to  say:  "  Whatever  may  be  his 
guilt  or  folly,  a  man  convicted  under  such  circumstances,  and, 
especially,  a  man  executed  after  such  a  trial,  will  be  the  most 
terrible  fruit  that  slavery  has  ever  borne,  and  will  excite 
the  execration  of  the  whole  civilized  world."  41  To  an  ob 
server  of  the  protracted  criminal  trials  in  this  country  to-day, 
it  seems  odd  that  any  one  should  have  objected  to  a  prompt 
trial  for  Brown.  But  public  sentiment  was  far  too  aroused  on 
both  sides  to  permit  of  calm  judgments.  The  spectacle  of  the 
gray-haired  prisoner  sentenced  while  lying  on  his  couch,  when 
combined  with  the  belief  that  the  trial  was  an  unfair  one  by 
reason  of  haste,  made  John  Brown  a  martyr  in  the  eyes  of  the 
North. 

Tactically,  from  the  point  of  view  of  slavery,  it  would  seem 
that  Governor  Wise  erred  in  not  suggesting  a  delay,  unless 
it  be  believed  that  he,  who  had  bombastically  threatened 
secession  in  1854  m  the  event  of  the  election  of  an  Aboli 
tionist  President,42  was  as  anxious  to  see  John  Brown's  acts 
embroil  the  States  as  he  was  ready  to  utilize  Brown's  impris- 
onment  as  an  excuse  for  training  the  militia  of  Virginia  for 
the  impending  conflict.  In  1888,  nearly  thirty  years  after  the 
raid,  when  the  heat  of  the  hour  had  long  since  passed  away, 
Judge  Parker  reviewed  the  trial  of  his  most  distinguished 
criminal  in  these  words: 

"  Frequent  misrepresentations  have  been  made  respecting  it.  For 
example,  it  has  been  said  that  the  trial  was  indecently  conducted, 
and  so  hurried  through  as  virtually  to  deny  to  the  accused  an  op 
portunity  to  make  his  defense.  I  submit,  with  all  deference,  that 
censures  of  this  character  can  only  have  proceeded  from  ignorance 
of  what  really  transpired  on  that  occasion.  It  is  my  principle  —  I 
may  say  my  only  purpose  in  this  paper,  to  show  how  groundless 
were  all  such  charges,  and  to  set  forth,  in  a  plain  narrative,  the  spirit 
and  temper  in  which  the  trial  was  conducted;  that  there  was  no 
denial  to  the  accused  of  any  presumption,  benefit  or  right  to  which 
he  was  entitled ;  that  no  bias  against  him  was  exhibited  by  the  jury 
or  the  Court;  that  he  was  defended  by  learned  and  zealous  counsel, 
who,  without  let  or  interruption,  were  granted  all  the  time  they  were 
pleased  to  consume  in  the  examination  of  witnesses,  in  discussing 
the  various  questions  of  law  and  fact,  which  arose  during  the  trial, 
in  excepting  to  every  opinion  of  the  Court  wherein  they  supposed 
there  might  be  an  error,  and  in  arguing  before  the  Jury  every  matter 


482  JOHN  BROWN 

which  they  deemed  important  or  beneficial  to  the  defense;  in  a 
word,  to  show  that  John  Brown  had  a  fair  and  impartial  trial,  just 
such  as  should  be  granted  to  all  persons  so  unfortunate  as  to  be 
accused  of  crime." 

Judge  Parker's  own  bearing  throughout  the  trial,  and  his 
eminently  judicial  spirit,  have  never  been  questioned.  He 
was  bravely  ready  at  all  times  to  take  his  stand  without 
regard  to  the  violent  feelings  of  his  neighbors,  and  his  word 
as  to  the  trial  is,  as  a  whole,  to  be  accepted.  It  is  to  be  regret 
ted,  however,  that  he  did  not  give  the  additional  time  to 
Brown's  counsel  for  which  the  prisoner  pleaded ;  had  he  done 
so,  it  must  have  mitigated  many  of  the  Northern  criticisms 
of  the  procedure. 

These  were  not  all  from  irresponsible  sources.  So  good  a 
lawyer,  so  just  and  public-spirited  a  man  as  John  A.  Andrew, 
for  instance,  felt  indignant  at  what  seemed  to  him  the  undue 
haste  of  the  trial.  He  testified  before  the  Senate  inquiry  into 
the  raid  that, 

"such  speed  and  hurried  action  ...  as  to  render  it  probable 
that  there  was  to  be  no  sufficient  opportunity  to  make  a  full  and 
complete  defense  .  .  .  struck  my  mind,  and  the  minds  of  various 
other  gentlemen  whom  I  met  with  .  .  .  as  being  a  judicial  outrage. 
...  It  was  wholly  unlike  anything  I  had  ever  known  or  heard 
in  my  practice  as  a  lawyer.  When  some  persons  had  been  indicted 
for  kidnapping,  in  Massachusetts,  last  September,  the  court  gave 
Gen.  Gushing,  their  counsel,  two  or  three  months  after  their  arraign 
ment  before  he  was  required  even  to  file  a  plea."  44 

But  Mr.  Andrew  was  probably  ignorant  of  the  Virginia  stat 
ute  governing  the  case,  already  quoted.  After  this  lapse  of 
time  it  is  plain  that  the  authorities  had  ample  justification 
in  this  statute,  and  in  the  popular  excitement,  in  expediting 
the  trial ;  that  the  outcome  of  a  deferred  trial  would  have  been 
the  same  is  also  obvious.  It  certainly  cannot  be  successfully 
maintained  that  substantial  injustice  was  done  to  John 
Brown  by  the  celerity  of  his  conviction.  When  all  was  said 
and  done,  and  the  trial  finished,  John  Brown  expressed  his 
opinion  in  the  following  words:  "I  feel  entirely  satisfied  with 
the  treatment  I  have  received  on  my  trial.  Considering  all 
the  circumstances,  it  has  been  more  generous  than  I  ex 
pected.'*  45  It  remains  to  add  the  testimony  of  Daniel  W.  Voor- 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  483 

hees,  the  great  Indiana  lawyer  and  orator,  who  later  became 
United  States  Senator  from  that  State.  Mr.  Voorhees  was 
present  at  John  Brown's  trial,  having  been  summoned  by 
Governor  Willard,  Cook's  brother-in-law,  to  defend  his  rela 
tive.  Of  the  court  procedure  he  had,  in  later  years,  this  to 
say: 

"  If  justly  represented  by  the  pen  of  the  historian,  it  will  pass  into 
history  as  the  most  temperate  and  conservative  judicial  tribunal 
convened,  when  all  the  surrounding  circumstances  are  considered. 
With  perfect  calmness,  forbearing  patience  and  undisturbed  ad 
herence  to  the  law,  as  known  and  decided  throughout  generations, 
that  court  arises  upon  my  mind  with  increased  and  increasing 
claims  to  the  respect  and  veneration  of  the  American  people  and 
of  the  world.  Nothing  was  yielded  to  outside  excitement  or  popu 
lar  frenzy."48 

The  question  of  counsel  for  John  Brown  early  presented 
itself.  There  being  no  Northern  lawyers  on  hand,  in  accord 
ance  with  universal  custom,  Charles  B.  Harding,  attorney 
for  the  State,  asked  at  the  first  examination  that  the  Magis 
trates'  court  assign  counsel  for  the  prisoners.47  Charles  J. 
Faulkner  and  Lawson  Botts  were  designated.  Mr.  Faulkner 
asked  to  be  relieved,  because  he  resented  the  criticisms  by 
the  prisoner  of  his  and  Mr.  Botts's  appointment.  Having 
helped  to  end  the  raid  by  force,  he  had,  moreover,  freely  ex 
pressed  his  opinion  of  the  raiders  and  their  deserts,  besides 
which,  he  had  important  professional  engagements  elsewhere. 
Mr.  Faulkner's  serving  through  the  preliminary  examination 
was  insisted  on;  after  that  he  withdrew,  to  bear  public  wit 
ness  in  the  next  month  that  he  had  never  in  the  course  of  his 
professional  career  "witnessed  an  examination  which  was 
entered  upon  and  conducted  with  more  deliberation  and  de 
corum  and  with  a  more  sacred  regard  to  all  the  requirements, 
which  the  humane  system  of  our  criminal  laws  throws  around 
the  life  and  liberty  of  the  accused,  than  was  extended  to  those 
wicked  disturbers  of  our  peace."  48 

Mr.  Botts  felt  it  his  duty  to  carry  on  the  case,  and  Thomas 
C.  Green,  mayor  of  Charlestown,  was  appointed  by  the  court 
to  take  Mr.  Faulkner's  place.  Both  of  these  counsel  were 
able  lawyers  of  standing,  Mr.  Botts  being  thirty-six  years  old 
and  Mr.  Green  in  his  thirty-ninth  year.  The  latter  was  after- 


484  JOHN  BROWN 

wards  for  fourteen  years  a  distinguished  judge  of  the  West 
Virginia  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals,  while  Mr.  Botts  gave  his 
life  for  the  Confederacy  at  the  second  Bull  Run.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  in  Messrs.  Green  and  Botts,49  John  Brown  had 
assigned  to  him  far  abler  counsel  than  would  have  been  given 
to  the  ordinary  malefactor. 

His  friends  in  the  North  had  not  forgotten  him,  however. 
On  the  day  the  news  of  the  raid  was  received,  John  W.  Le 
Barnes,  of  Boston,  engaged,  at  his  own  expense,  a  young  law 
yer  of  Athol,  Massachusetts,  George  H.  Hoyt,  and  asked  him 
to  go  to  Harper's  Ferry  ostensibly  as  counsel  to  John  Brown, 
but  really  as  a  spy,  to  see  if  it  would  be  possible  to  rescue  the 
prisoners.  Mr.  Hoyt's  instructions  were, 

"first,  to  watch  and  be  able  to  report  proceedings,  to  see  and  talk 
with  Brown,  and  be  able  to  communicate  with  his  friends  anything 
Brown  might  want  to  say;  and  second,  to  send  me  [Le  Barnes]  an 
accurate  and  detailed  account  of  the  military  situation  at  Charles- 
town,  the  number  and  distribution  of  troops,  the  location  and 
defences  of  the  jail,  and  nature  of  the  approaches  to  the  town 
and  jail,  the  opportunities  for  a  sudden  attack,  and  the  means  of 
retreat,  with  the  location  and  situation  of  the  room  in  which  Brown 
is  confined,  and  all  other  particulars  that  might  enable  friends  to 
consult  as  to  some  plan  of  attempt  at  rescue." 

Le  Barnes  chose  Hoyt  because,  although  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  he  looked  not  over  nineteen,  and  was  physically  of 
fragile  appearance.  His  very  youth  and  evident  lack  of  worldly 
experience  would,  Le  Barnes  thought,  make  it  impossible 
for  any  one  to  suspect  him  of  ulterior  motives,  if  he  appeared 
at  Charlestown.  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe,  when  consulted  by 
both  men,  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the  scheme;  but  Le  Barnes 
persisting  and  giving  him  seventy-five  dollars,  Hoyt  set 
forth,50  little  dreaming  that  upon  his  frail  shoulders  would 
shortly  rest  the  burden  of  the  whole  defence  of  John  Brown. 
His  inexperience  told  against  him  in  Charlestown.  He  had 
not  been  there  an  hour  before  his  very  youth  had  aroused 
the  suspicions  of  Andrew  Hunter,  the  special  prosecutor  of 
the  State  of  Virginia.  Knowing  full  well  that  Massachusetts 
had  no  need  to  rely  on  callow  striplings  when  skilled  legal 
talent  was  in  order,  he  shrewdly  inferred  that  something  else 
was  in  the  wind,  and,  but  for  Judge  Parker's  magnanimity, 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  485 

would  have  excluded  Hoyt  from  participation  in  Brown's 
trial  as  incompetent  to  practise  in  the  courts  of  Virginia.  "A 
beardless  boy  came  in  last  night  as  Brown's  counsel,"  re 
ported  Hunter  to  Governor  Wise  on  October  28.  "  I  think  he 
is  a  spy.  There  are  divers  other  strangers  here.  .  .  .  They 
are  watched  closely."  81  But  the  watch  set  upon  the  "beard 
less  boy"  was  not  close  enough  to  prevent  his  communicating 
freely  with  the  client  to  whom  he  had  so  unexpectedly  at 
tached  himself,  and  he  wasted  no  time  in  acquainting  Brown 
with  the  real  purpose  of  his  unannounced  arrival.52 

Brown's  legal  advisers  were  called  upon  to  joust  with  two 
prosecutors  for  the  State.  One  of  these  was  the  regular  com 
monwealth's  attorney,  Charles  Harding,  whose  notorious 
dissipation  made  it  impossible  for  the  State  really  to  entrust 
to  him  the  prosecution  of  so  important  a  case.  Usually  in 
toxicated,  he  knew  but  little  of  what  was  going  on  behind 
the  scenes,  Governor  Wise  giving  his  directions  for  the  con 
duct  of  affairs  to  Andrew  Hunter,  and  completely  ignoring 
the  commonwealth's  attorney.  To  Hunter,  Harding  was  a 
"pestiferous  little  prosecutor,"53  whom  he  longed  to  have 
out  of  the  way.  "When  Harding  began  to  speak,  if  you  shut 
your  eyes  and  listened,  for  the  first  few  minutes  you  would 
think  Patrick  Henry  had  returned  to  earth;  after  that  he 
dwindled  away  into  ineptitudes," — is  the  recollection  of  one 
who  knew  him  well.54  During  the  trial  he  frequently  fell 
asleep  as  the  result  of  his  libations.  Of  a  different  type  was 
Andrew  Hunter,  a  man  of  distinguished  bearing,  a  vigor 
ous  Southern  personality,  handsome  face  and  undoubted 
ability.  Deeply  impressed  with  the  importance  of  the  trial, 
he  prosecuted  John  Brown  with  marked  aggressiveness,  yield 
ing  no  point  and  fighting  every  moment,  often  with  some 
bombast,  but  without,  said  Mr.  Voorhees,  "a  single  tone  of 
malevolence  or  exasperation."  55  Mr.  Hunter  sincerely  felt 
that,  in  view  of  the  public  temper,  no  time  was  to  be  lost; 
he  wanted  Brown  condemned  and  executed  within  ten 
days.  "The  Judge,"  Mr.  Hunter  wrote  to  Governor  Wise, 
"is  for  observing  all  the  judicial  decencies;  so  am  I,  but  at 
double  quick  time.  .  .  .  Stephens  will  hardly  be  fit  for  trial. 
He  will  probably  die  of  his  wounds  if  we  don't  hang  him 
promptly."  56 


486  JOHN  BROWN 

With  Charlestown  all  agog  and  crowded  with  newspaper 
men,  militia  and  armed  citizens,  John  Brown  and  his  four 
fellow  prisoners,  Coppoc,  Stevens,  Copeland  and  Green, 
took,  on  October  25,  the  first  of  their  short  pilgrimages  from 
the  jail  to  the  court-house  diagonally  opposite,  which  they 
were  to  make  historic.  Its  venerable  air,  the  distinctively 
Southern  character  of  its  architecture,  made  it  then,  as  now, 
an  impressive  structure.  A  gaping  mob  watched  in  silence 
as,  between  two  lines  of  militia,  the  Yankee  prisoners  took 
their  way.  For  John  Brown  and  Stevens,  though  carried 
later,  on  this  occasion  walked  the  brief  distance,  the  former 
with  head  erect  and  defiant  bearing.  "His  confinement  has 
not  at  all  tamed  the  daring  of  his  spirit;  his  height,  as  he 
stood  erect,  appeared  to  be  full  six  feet;  his  figure  rather  slen 
der  and  wiry,"  —so  telegraphed  the  Herald  correspondent.67 
Brown's  eyes  were  swollen;  the  marks  of  bruises  and  contu 
sions  were  plain  enough.  Stevens's  terrible  wounds  were  so 
evident,  and  his  inability  to  walk  unsupported  so  pitiful, 
that,  anxious  as  the  crowd  was  for  these  men's  blood,  there 
was  not  a  hostile  demonstration  as  they  entered  the  crowded, 
down-at-the-heel  court-room,  reeking  with  tobacco  smoke 
and  looking  as  if  it  were  familiar  with  every  kind  of  being 
save  the  scrub-woman.  John  Brown,  manacled  to  Coppoc, 
found  no  trace  of  pity  in  the  faces  of  the  crowd  he  beheld, 
nor  in  those  of  the  eight  magistrates  forming  the  court  of 
examination  to  which  the  prisoners  were  now  presented  by 
the  sheriff. 

"Sundry  witnesses, "  so  read  the  minutes,  "were  examined, 
and  the  Court  being  unanimously  of  opinion  that  the  Prisoners 
are  Guilty  of  the  offence  with  which  they  stand  charged,  it 
is  ordered  and  considered  by  the  Court  that  they  be  sent  on 
to  the  Circuit  Court  of  this  County  for  trial  according  to 
Law."58  Behind  this  brief  record  lies  one  of  the  dramatic 
incidents  of  the  trial,  for  when  the  court,  before  assigning 
to  the  prisoners  Messrs.  Faulkner  and  Botts,  asked  whether 
they  had  counsel,  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie  rose  feebly  from 
his  seat  and,  with  his  usual  vigor  of  utterance,  his  undaunted 
courage  and  indomitable  spirit,  thus  addressed,  not  the  court 
but  his  countrymen,  amid  the  most  profound  silence  and  at 
tention  of  all  who  heard: 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  487       L 

Irginians,  I  did  not  ask  for  any  quarter  at  the  time  I  was  taken. 
I  did  not  ask  to  have  my  life  spared.  ffThe  Governor  of  the  State  of  ^ 
Virginia  tendered  me  his  assurance  that  I  should  have  a  fair  trial ; 
but,  under  no  circumstances  whatever  will  I  be  able  to  have  a  fair 
trial.  If  you  seek  my  blood,  you  can  have  it  at  any  moment,  without 
this  mockery  of  a  trial.  I  have  had  no  counsel ;  I  have  not  been  able 
to  advise  with  any  one.  I  know  nothing  about  the  feelings  of  my 
fellow  prisoners,  and  am  utterly  unable  to  attend  in  any  way  to  my 
own  defence.  My  memory  don't  serve  me:  my  health  is  insufficient, 
although  improving.  There  are  mitigating  circumstances  that  I 
would  urge  in  our  favor,  if  a  fair  trial  is  to  be  allowed  us:  but  if  we  are 
to  be  forced  with  a  mere  form  —  a  trial  for  execution  —  you  might 
spare  yourselves  that  trouble.  I  am  ready  for  my  fate.  I  do  not  ask 
a  trial.  I  beg  for  no  mockery  of  a  trial  —  no  insult  —  nothing  but 
that  which  conscience  gives,  or  cowardice  would  drive  you  to  practise. 
I  ask  again  to  be  excused  from  the  mockery  of  a  trial.  I  do  not  even 
know  what  the  special  design  of  this  examination  is.  I  do  not  know 
what  is  to  be  the  benefit  of  it  to  the  Commonwealth.  I  have  now  little 
further  to  ask,  other  than  that  I  may  not  be  foolishly  insulted  only 
as  cowardly  barbarians  insult  those  who  fall  into  their  power."59 

When  asked  if  he  would  accept  Messrs.  Faulkner  and  Botts 
as  counsel,  he  replied:  "I  wish  for  counsel  if  I  am  to  have 
a  trial,  but  if  I  am  to  have  nothing  but  the  mockery  of  a 
trial,  as  I  said,  I  do  not  care  anything  about  counsel  —  it  is 
unnecessary  to  trouble  any  gentleman  with  that  duty."60  He 
declined  to  say  whether  he  would  or  would  not  accept  the 
counsel  offered,  but  Stevens  chose  them,  and  they  were  duly 
assigned,  in  the  face  of  John  Brown's  assertion  that  he  had 
sent  for  some  persons  in  the  North  whose  names  he  could  not 
then  recall.  He  was  but  little  interested  when  the  witnesses, 
Colonel  Washington  and  seven  others,  testified  to  their  know 
ledge  of  the  raid.  Still  less  was  he  moved  when  the  presiding 
justice,  Colonel  Braxton  Davenport,  announced  the  decision 
of  the  court.  His  bearing  was  as  impressive  as  before  when, 
again  manacled,  he  and  his  fellow  prisoners  left  the  dingy 
court-room  with  its  five  or  six  hundred  spectators,  and  took 
their  way  back  to  the  jail.  That  same  afternoon  their  com 
rade  Cook  was  arrested  in  Pennsylvania,  thanks  to  the  re 
ward  offered  by  Virginia.61 

The  next  move  in  the  judicial  machinery  was  the  process 
of  indictment.  At  two  o'clock  the  examining  magistrates 
reported  their  conclusions.  Judge  Parker  at  once  charged  the 


488  JOHN  BROWN 

Grand  Jury  ably  and  dispassionately,  and  having  heard  from 
excellent  authority  of  a  deliberate  plot  to  lynch  the  prison 
ers,  he  added  to  his  charge  a  warning  against  any  such  con 
duct,  which,  he  declared,  would  be  disgraceful  to  the  State 
and  nothing  else  than  murder,  for  which  its  perpetrators  might 
themselves  incur  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law.  Thereafter 
no  talk  of  lynching  was  heard,  and  Judge  Parker  was  de 
servedly  congratulated  far  and  wide  for  his  high-minded  and 
courageous  stand.  The  Grand  Jury  then  retired  with  the 
State's  witnesses.  Before  it  were  rehearsed  anew  their  oft- 
told  stories,  and  adjournment  time  came  before  they  were  fin 
ished.  At  noon  on  the  next  day,  Wednesday,  the  Grand  Jury 
reported  its  true  bill  against  each  of  the  prisoners  on  three 
counts — treason  to  the  commonwealth,  conspiring  with  slaves 
to  commit  treason,  and  murder;  they  being  "evil-minded  and 
traitorous  persons,"  "not  having  the  fear  of  God  before 
their  eyes,  but  being  moved  and  seduced  by  the  false  and  ma 
lignant  counsel  of  other  evil  and  traitorous  persons  and  the 
instigations  of  the  devil,"62  —  so  runs  the  indictment. 

Those  instigated  by  the  Evil  One  were  soon  brought  into 
court,  —  Stevens  on  a  mattress,  making,  because  of  his  dif 
ficulty  in  breathing,  the  impression  of  a  dying  man.  Captain 
Avis,  the  jailer,  when  ordered  to  bring  Brown  into  court, 
found  him  in  bed  and  unwilling  to  arise.  "He  was  accordingly 
carried  into  the  court-room  on  a  cot,"  wrote  the  Tribune 
correspondent.  "The  prisoner  lay  most  of  the  time  with  his 
eyes  closed,  and  the  counterpane  drawn  close  up  to  his  chin. 
He  is  evidently  not  much  injured,  but  is  determined  to  resist 
the  pushing  of  his  trial,  by  all  the  means  in  his  power."63  It 
was  at  this  time  that  John  Brown  arose  and  made  an  unavail 
ing  plea  for  delay  to  Judge  Parker: 

"  I  do  not  intend  to  detain  the  court,  but  barely  wish  to  say,  as  I 
have  been  promised  a  fair  trial,  that  I  am  not  now  in  circumstances 
that  enable  me  to  attend  a  trial,  owing  to  the  state  of  my  health.  I 
have  a  severe  wound  in  the  back,  or  rather  in  one  kidney,  which 
enfeebles  me  very  much.  But  I  am  doing  well,  and  I  only  ask  for  a 
very  short  delay  of  my  trial,  and  I  think  I  may  be  able  to  listen  to  it; 
and  I  merely  ask  this  that,  as  the  saying  is  'the  devil  may  have  "his 
dues,'  no  more.  I  wish  to  say  further  that  my  hearing  is  impaired 
and  rendered  indistinct  in  consequence  of  wounds  I  have  about  my 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  489 

head.  I  cannot  hear  distinctly  at  all ;  I  could  not  hear  what  the  Court 
has  said  this  morning.  I  would  be  glad  to  hear  what  is  said  on  my 
trial,  and  am  now  doing  better  than  I  could  expect  to  be  under  the 
circumstances.  A  very  short  delay  would  be  all  I  would  ask.  I  do 
not  presume  to  ask  more  than  a  very  short  delay,  so  that  I  may 
in  some  degree  recover,  and  be  able  at  least  to  listen  to  my  trial, 
and  hear  what  questions  are  asked  of  the  citizens,  and  what  their 
answers  are.  If  that  could  be  allowed  me,  I  should  be  very  much 
obliged."  64 

Judge  Parker,  dignified  and  firm,  with  a  singularly  stern 
countenance  in  marked  contrast  to  his  mild  and  quiet  manner, 
insisted  on  the  arraignment  being  read  before  passing  upon 
John  Brown's  appeal.  Both  the  wounded  prisoners  were  com 
pelled  to  stand  during  this  solemn  performance,  Stevens  being 
held  up  by  two  bailiffs.  Thereupon,  both  Mr.  Hunter  and  Mr. 
Harding  having  opposed  the  motion  for  delay,  and  the  jail 
physician,  a  Dr.  Mason,  having  testified  that  John  Brown's 
wounds  had  affected  neither  his  hearing  nor  his  mind,  nor  seri 
ously  disabled  him,  the  judge  refused  to  postpone  his  trial. 
As  each  of  the  prisoners  had  pleaded  not  guilty  and  elected 
to  be  tried  separately,  the  State  had  chosen  to  try  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  defeated  Provisional  Army  first,  and 
the  rest  of  the  afternoon  was  given  to  choosing  the  jury. 
Twenty-four  men  duly  qualified  to  act  as  jurors  were  then 
selected  from  a  large  panel,  after  being  asked  the  usual  ques 
tion  whether  they  had  formed  any  opinion  about  the  guilt 
of  the  prisoners  which  would  disqualify  them  from  giving 
the  offenders  a  fair  trial.  Of  these  twenty-four,  John  Brown, 
through  his  counsel,  exercised  his  right  to  challenge  peremp 
torily  eight;  from  the  remaining  sixteen  the  final  twelve  were 
then  chosen  by  lot,  and  the  court  adjourned  until  the  next  day, 
after  solemnly  adjuring  the  twelve  to  discuss  the  case  with  no 
one.66  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  believe  that  the  twelve 
men  chosen  had  not  formed  any  opinion  about  the  case.  There 
were  no  men  in  Jefferson  County  who  had  not  prejudged 
Brown,  and  if  ever  a  motion  for  a  change  of  venue  to  another 
county  was  in  order,  it  was  in  this  case.  But  his  Southern 
counsel  did  not  attempt  it. 

On  Thursday,  when  court  opened,  Mr.  Botts  surprised 
priso'ner  and  prosecution  alike  by  reading  a  telegram  from 
Akron,  Ohio,  alleging  insanity  in  John  Brown's  family.  Of  the 


490  JOHN  BROWN 

plea  of  insanity  which  this  suggested,  John  Brown  promptly 
declined  to  avail  himself,  as  will  appear  later.  But,  his  coun 
sel  having  again  urged  delay,  the  vigilant  prosecutors  again 
opposed,  and  the  judge  once  more  decided  that  he  could  see 
no  proper  cause  for  postponement.  The  indictment  being 
read,  the  attorneys  for  the  State  and  Mr.  Botts  made  their 
opening  addresses.  It  was  due  to  the  prisoner,  said  his  chival 
rous  counsel,  to  state  that  he  believed  himself  to  be  actuated 
by  the  highest  and  noblest  feelings  that  ever  coursed  through 
a  human  breast,  and  that  his  instructions  were  to  destroy 
neither  life  nor  property.  Mr.  Hunter  confined  himself  to  a 
definition  of  treason,  told  of  a  previous  murder  in  the  arsenal 
grounds  for  which  the  murderer  was  tried  and  executed,  not  by 
the  United  States  but  by  Virginia,  and  wound  up  by  begging 
for  a  fair  and  impartial  consideration  of  the  case,  "without 
fear  or  favor.  ...  I  ask  only  that  the  penalty  be  visited  on  the 
prisoner  which  the  law  denounces,  which  reason  denounces, 
which  our  safety  requires,  and  which  the  laws  of  God  and  man 
approve."  66  Thereupon  began  the  examination  of  witnesses. 
It  was  the  next  morning,  Friday,  that  the  " beardless  boy" 
from  Boston  walked  into  the  court-room  and  asked  to  be  made 
an  additional  counsel  for  Brown.  The  astonishment  was  pro 
found  ;  it  increased  when  Hoyt  expressed  the  wish  not  to  take 
part  in  the  case  at  present,  and  when  he  was  unable  to  prove 
that  he  was  actually  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Bar,  as 
the  suspicious  Mr.  Hunter  asked  him  to  demonstrate.  But  the 
just  judge  was  not  inclined  to  quibble.  Visiting  lawyers  from 
the  North  were  already,  as  the  Tribune  reported,  eulogizing 
his  method  of  presiding,  and  were  "profuse  in  praises  of  his 
candor  and  integrity."  67  It  was  enough  for  the  judge  that 
Mr.  Green  remembered  that  his  partner  had  seen  letters 
speaking  of  Hoyt  as  a  full-fledged  attorney.  Thereupon  the 
oath  was  administered  68  and  the  examination  of  witnesses 
continued.  By  this  time  the  prisoner  was  taking  more  interest 
in  his  defence.  He  had  drawn  up  the  following  suggestions  for 
his  counsel : 

"We  gave  to  numerous  prisoners  perfect  liberty. 
"Get  all  their  names. 

"We  allowed  numerous  other  prisoners  to  visit  their  families,  to 
quiet  their  fears. 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  491 

"  Get  all  their  names. 

"We  allowed  the  conductor  to  pass  his  train  over  the  bridge  with 
all  his  passengers,  I  myself  crossing  the  bridge  with  him,  and  as 
suring  all  the  passengers  of  their  perfect  safety. 

"  Get  that  conductor's  name,  and  the  names  of  the  passengers,  so  far 
as  may  be. 

"We  treated  all  our  prisoners  with  the  utmost  kindness  and  hu 
manity. 

"Get  all  their  names,  so  far  as  may  be. 

"Our  orders,  from  the  first  and  throughout,  were,  that  no  un 
armed  person  should  be  injured,  under  any  circumstances  whatever. 

"  Prove  that  by  ALL  the  prisoners. 

"We  committed  no  destruction  or  waste  of  property. 

"Prove  that." { 

The  prosecution  having  rested  on  Friday  afternoon,  -the 
defence  began.  Messrs.  Botts  and  Green  followed  John 
Brown's  suggestion,  and  essayed  to  prove,  apparently  with  a 
view  to  mitigating  the  offence  charged,  the  kindness  with 
which  Brown  treated  his  prisoners.  This  drew  from  Andrew 
Hunter  the  caustic  and  truthful  comment  that  testimony  to 
Brown's  forbearance  in  not  shooting  other  citizens  had  no 
more  to  do  with  the  case  than  had  the  dead  languages. 

Only  on  one  occasion  during  the  trial  did  John  Brown  show 
emotion.  He  "cried  out"  for  details,  so  read  the  reports,  when 
Hatrry  Hunter  narrated  the  revolting  story  of  William  Thomp 
son's  slaughter  on  the  Harper's  Ferry  bridge.  It  became 
Andrew  Hunter's  painful  duty  to  listen  to  his  son's  open  and 
unabashed  tale  of  how  he  and  George  W.  Chambers  shot  down 
Thompson,  when  the  latter  was  unarmed  and  pleading  for  his 
life.  It  is  to  the  father's  credit  that  he  bade  his  son  conceal 
nothing;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  any  father  ever  listened  to  a  more 
cold-blooded  recital  of  deliberate  killing  by  his  offspring.  Yet 
the  audience  listened  apparently  unmoved,  while  John  Brown 
groaned.  Shortly  afterward,  when  the  names  of  several  wit 
nesses  were  called  with  no  response,  John  Brown  excitedly 
rose  to  his  feet  and  spoke  thus  to  the  keen-eyed  judge  on  the 
dais  above  him : 

"May  it  please  the  Court:  —  I  discover  that  notwithstanding  all 
the  assurances  I  have  received  of  a  fair  trial,  nothing  like  a  fair 
trial  is  to  be  given  me,  as  it  would  seem.  I  gave  the  names,  as  soon 
as  I  could  get  them,  of  the  persons  I  wished  to  have  called  as  wit 
nesses,  and  was  assured  that  they  would  be  subpoenaed.  I  wrote 


492  JOHN  BROWN 

down  a  memorandum  to  that  effect,  saying  where  those  parties 
were;  but  it  appears  that  they  have  not  been  subpoenaed  as  far  as 
I  can  learn ;  and  now  I  ask,  if  I  am  to  have  anything  at  all  deserving 
the  name  and  shadow  of  a  fair  trial,  that  this  proceeding  be  deferred 
until  tomorrow  morning;  for  I  have  no  counsel,  as  I  before  stated, 
in  whom  I  feel  that  I  can  rely,  but  I  am  in  hopes  counsel  may  arrive 
who  will  attend  to  seeing  that  I  get  the  witnesses  who  are  neces 
sary  for  my  defence.  I  am  myself  unable  to  attend  to  it.  I  have 
given  all  the  attention  I  possibly  could  to  it,  but  am  unable  to  see  or 
know  about  them,  and  can't  even  find  out  their  names;  and  I  have 
nobody  to  do  any  errands,  for  my  money  was  all  taken  when  I  was 
sacked  and  stabbed,  and  I  have  not  a  dime.  I  had  two  hundred  and 
fifty  or  sixty  dollars  in  gold  and  silver  taken  from  my  pocket,  and 
now  I  have  no  possible  means  of  getting  anybody  to  go  my  errands 
for  me,  and  I  have  not  had  all  the  witnesses  subpoenaed.  They 
are  not  within  reach,  and  are  not  here.  I  ask  at  least  until  tomorrow 
morning  to  have  something  done,  if  anything  is  designed ;  if  not,  I 
am  ready  for  anything  that  may  come  up."70 

"When,  upon  finding  that  his  witnesses  were  absent," 
reported  the  Herald's  correspondent, 

"Brown  rose  and  denounced  his  counsel,  declaring  he  had  no  con 
fidence  in  them,  the  indignation  of  the  citizens  scarcely  knew  bounds. 
He  was  stigmatized  as  an  ungrateful  villain,  and  some  declared  he 
deserved  hanging  for  that  act  alone.  His  counsel,  Messrs.  Botts 
and  Green,  had  certainly  performed  the  ungrateful  task  imposed 
upon  them  by  the  Court  in  an  able,  faithful  and  conscientious  man 
ner;  and  only  the  evening  before  Brown  had  told  Mr.  Botts  that 
he  was  doing  for  him  even  more  than  he  had  promised."71 

No  sooner  had  Brown  finished  this  speech  than  Mr.  Hoyt 
sprang  to  his  feet,  adding  greatly  to  the  stir  in  the  court-room, 
and  asking  that  the  case  be  postponed,  because  Judge  Tilden 
from  Ohio  was  coming  and  due  that  night  to  aid  in  the  defence. 
He,  himself,  was  unable  to  go  on  alone  with  Brown's  case,  for  he 
had  but  just  come  from  Boston,  travelling  night  and  day,  had 
had  no  time  to  read  the  indictment,  and  was  wholly  ignorant 
of  the  criminal  code  of  Virginia.  After  asserting  that  they  had 
done  everything  possible  for  their  client,  Mr.  Botts  and  Mr. 
Green  announced  that  they  could  no  longer  act  in  behalf  of  the 
prisoner,  since  he  had  declared  that  he  had  no  confidence  in 
them.  Judge  Parker  at  once  replied  that  he  would  not  compel 
them  to  stay  in  the  case,  and  that  he  therefore  granted  Mr. 
Hoyt's  request  and  adjourned  the  trial  until  the  next  morning 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  493 

at  ten.  Thus,  to  his  utter  amazement  and  inward  consterna 
tion,  the  "  beardless  boy,"  the  spy  sent  to  survey  the  ground, 
found  himself  charged  with  the  sole  responsibility  for  the 
conduct  of  a  case  of  which  he  knew  little  or  nothing,  under 
a  code  and  procedure  with  which  he  was  entirely  unfamiliar, 
and  this  in  a  trial  which  the  hostile  New  York  Herald  had 
four  days  before  characterized  as  the  most  notable  in  the  last 
half-century  "in  point  of  national  importance."  The  trial  of 
Aaron  Burr  had  excited  less  intense  feeling;  the  Herald  even 
felt  that  the  life  and  death  of  the  whole  Republic  was  involved. 
The  situation  in  which  the  inexperienced  Mr.  Hoyt  now  found 
himself  might  have  tried  the  soul  of  a  veteran  and  skilled  prac 
titioner;  it  undoubtedly  blanched  his  beardless  cheeks.  But 
it  is  to  his  everlasting  credit  that  he  bent  manfully  to  his  task. 

Mr.  Botts  put  his  notes,  his  office  and  his  services  at  Hoyt's 
command,  and  sat  up  with  him  the  greater  part  of  the  night.72 
When  Judge  Parker  took  his  seat  on  the  bench  the  next  morn 
ing,  there  was  reinforcement  for  Brown's  inexperienced  coun 
sel,  —  not  Judge  Tilden,  as  had  been  expected,  but  Samuel 
Chilton,  of  Washington,  and  Hiram  Griswold,  of  Cleveland. 
Mr.  Chilton's  arrival  was  due  to  John  A.  Andrew,  of  Boston, 
who  first  asked  Judge  Montgomery  Blair,  of  Washington,  to 
act  as  Brown's  defender,  guaranteeing  him  adequate  compen 
sation.  Judge  Blair  being  unwilling  to  appear,  Mr.  Andrew 
agreed  to  his  substitution  of  Mr.  Chilton.73  John  Brown  him 
self  had  written  to  Judge  Daniel  R.  Tilden,  of  Cleveland,  and 
Judge  Thomas  Russell,  of  Boston,  asking  them  to  become  his 
legal  advisers.  Judge  Russell  came  in  person,  but  not  until  the 
day  of  sentence;  Judge  Tilden  sent  Mr.  Griswold  in  his  place. 
To  Tilden  and  Russell,  John  Brown  wrote  that,  without  such 
counsel,  "neither  the  facts  in  our  case  can  come  before  the 
world;  nor  can  we  have  the  benefit  of  such  facts  (as  might  be 
considered  mitigating  in  the  view  of  others)  upon  our  trial. 
.  .  .  Do  not  send  an  ultra  Abolitionist."  74 

Both  Chilton  and  Griswold  asked  for  a  delay  of  a  few  hours, 
in  order  that  they  might  be  better  equipped  for  their  tasks, 
but  the  inexorable  judge  ordered  the  trial  to  proceed.  The  pris 
oner  had  had  able  counsel  and  ample  defence;  he  had  chosen 
to  make  a  change,  for  which  the  responsibility  was  on  his  own 
shoulders.  If  this  were  the  only  case  before  the  court,  he 


494  JOHN  BROWN 

would  at  once  grant  the  request;  but  the  nearness  of  the  end 
of  the  term,  and  the  other  cases  to  be  disposed  of,  necessitated 
prompt  action,  in  justice  to  the  prisoners  and  to  the  State.  Mr. 
Hoyt  then  resumed  the  defence  along  the  same  lines  as  Messrs. 
Botts  and  Green,  hoping  to  prove  through  those  witnesses 
who  had  been  prisoners  in  the  engine  house  the  absence  of 
any  malicious  intent.  John  Brown  himself  now  took  a  hand  in 
examining  the  witnesses  from  his  cot,  without  objection  from 
any  one  to  this  unusual  procedure. 

In  the  afternoon  session,  a  new  policy  was  adopted,  Mr. 
Chilton  submitting  a  motion  that  the  prosecution  be  com 
pelled  to  elect  one  count  of  the  indictment  and  abandon  the 
others.  His  argument,  supported  by  a  couple  of  hastily 
gathered  citations,  was  that  different  descriptions  of  treason 
could  not  be  united  in  the  same  indictment,  as  was  the  case 
there.  That  it  was  a  grave  hardship  upon  the  prisoner  to 
defend  himself  at  one  and  the  same  time  against  three  such 
distinct  charges  as  murder,  treason  and  inciting  slaves  to 
rebel,  Mr.  Chilton  also  pointed  out.  The  judge,  after  hearing 
spirited  replies  from  Hunter  and  Harding,  ruled  that,  as  the 
trial  had  been  begun  under  the  indictment,  it  must  continue; 
that  the  only  remedy  now  was  to  move  an  arrest  of  judg 
ment  at  its  conclusion.  "The  very  fact  that  the  offence  can 
be  charged  in  different  counts,  varying  the  language  and  cir 
cumstances,  is  based  upon  the  idea  that  distinct  offences 
may  be  charged  in  the  same  indictment,"  ruled  Judge  Parker. 
"The  prisoners  are  to  be  tried  on  the  various  counts  as  if  they 
were  various  transactions.  There  is  no  legal  objection  against 
charging  various  crimes  in  the  same  indictment.  The  practice 
has  been  to  put  a  party  upon  election  where  the  prisoner  would 
be  embarrassed  in  his  defence;  but  that  is  not  the  law."  *  In 
this  contention  Judge  Parker  was  later  upheld  by  the  full 
bench  of  the  Virginia  Court  of  Appeals.75 

*  The  decision  of  Judge  Parker  is  in  accord  with  the  law  of  New  York  State 
to-day,  which  holds  that  where  the  same  acts  constitute  different  crimes,  they 
may  be  set  out  in  the  indictment  in  different  counts.  Thus  an  indictment  may 
unite  burglary  in  the  third  degree,  petit  larceny  and  receiving  stolen  property. 
See  People  vs.  Stock,  21  Misc.  147;  People  vs.  VVilson,  151  N.  Y.  403.  In  People 
vs.  Austin,  I  Park  Criminal  Reports,  154,  it  was  held  that  "the  right  of  election  is 
confined  to  cases  where  the  indictment  contains  charges  which  are  actually  dis 
tinct  and  grew  out  of  different  transactions." 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  495 

This  argument  was  the  crucial  point  in  the  trial  of  John 
Brown.  The  court  now  pressed  the  lawyers  to  argue  the  case 
at  once.  John  Brown's  counsel  protested,  Hoyt  because  he 
had  worked  the  previous  night  until  he  fell  unconscious  from 
exhaustion,  and  had  had  but  ten  hours  sleep  in  the  last  five 
days  and  nights.  Mr.  Hunter  battled,  of  course,  against  any 
delay,  and  the  court,  taking  a  position  which  would  seem 
strange  indeed  in  a  modern  murder  trial,  —  that  the  jurors, 
having  been  in  the  box  three  days,  were  entitled  to  early 
release,  —  ordered  the  prosecution  to  begin  their  summing  up. 
Mr.  Harding  did  so  by  dwelling  on  the  absurdity  of  John 
Brown's  claim  that  he  should  have  been  treated  according 
to  the  rules  of  warfare,  when  he  was  merely  in  command  of 
a  band  of  murderers  and  thieves.  The  court  then  adjourned 
over  Sunday,  to  Andrew  Hunter's  vexation,  for  he  had  insisted 
that  the  trial  be  concluded  that  night.  At  the  time  and  later, 
Hunter  accused  John  Brown — the  "  crafty  old  fiend,"  he 
called  him  —  of  feigning  illness  on  this  day  to  gain  time.76 
When  the  court  had  reassembled  on  Saturday  afternoon,  word 
came  from  the  jail,  according  to  Hunter, 

"  that  Brown  was  too  sick  to  appear  that  evening.  I  suspected  the 
ruse,  and  at  once  suggested  to  the  court  to  have  the  jail  physician 
summoned  to  examine  whether  he  was  too  sick  and  to  report.  This 
was  done,  and  the  physician,  who  was  Dr.  Mason,  promptly  re 
ported  that  he  was  not  too  sick  and  that  he  was  feigning.  On  my 
motion  the  court  directed  him  to  be  brought  into  court  on  a  cot. 
.  .  .  The  trial  went  on  to  a  certain  extent,  but  every  effort  was 
made  to  protract  it.  I  resisted  it,  but  at  last,  late  in  the  evening, 
the  Judge  called  me  up  and  said  he  thought  we  had  better  agree, 
to  avoid  all  further  cavil  at  our  proceedings,  to  let  the  case  be  ad 
journed  over  until  Monday,  which  was  done.  Brown  did  not  require 
to  be  carried  back  to  jail  that  evening;  he  walked  back.  After  the 
adjournment  was  procured,  he  was  well  enough  to  walk."77 

On  Sunday,  Hoyt  reported  to  his  employer,  Le  Barnes, 
that  Mr.  Chilton  and  Mr.  Griswold  had  been  closeted  with 
John  Brown  for  three  or  four  hours,  that, 

"Brown  is  well  pleased  with  what  has  transpired;  is  perfectly  sat 
isfied,  and  more  than  all  the  rest,  seems  to  be  inspired  with  a  truly 
noble  Resignation."  "I  confess,"  Hoyt  continues,  "I  did  not  know 
which  most  to  admire,  the  thorough  honor  and  admirable  qualities 
of  the  brave  old  border  soldier,  or  the  uncontaminated  simplicity 


496  JOHN  BROWN 

of  the  man.  My  friend  John  Brown  is  an  astonishing  character. 
The  people  about  here,  while  determined  to  have  him  die  for  his 
alleged  offences,  generally  concede  and  applaud  the  conscientious 
ness,  the  honor,  and  the  supreme  bravery  of  the  man."  78 

On  Monday,  Mr.  Griswold  and  Mr.  Chilton  argued  at 
length  and  as  ably  as  it  was  possible  under  the  circumstances, 
and  at  half-past  one  Mr.  Hunter  concluded  the  case  by  saying 
to  the  jury,  "Administer  it  [justice]  according  to  your  law 
-acquit  the  prisoner  if  you  can;  but  if  justice  requires  you 
by  your  verdict  to  take  his  life,  stand  by  that  column  [of 
justice]  uprightly,  but  strongly,  and  let  retributive  justice,  if 
he  is  guilty,  send  him  before  that  Maker  who  will  settle  the 
question  forever  and  ever." 

Three-quarters  of  an  hour  later,  the  jury  filed  back  into 
court  to  answer  the  question  whether  the  prisoner  at  the  bar 
was  guilty  or  not  guilty.  Of  all  the  men  in  that  stifling  court 
room,  —  and  the  crowd  not  only  filled  every  inch  of  space 
around  the  prisoner,  but  jammed  the  wide  entrance-hall  and 
even  stood  on  the  entrance-steps  in  the  hope  of  catching  a 
word  from  within,  —  the  least  moved  was  John  Brown,  as  in 
domitable  and  iron-willed  as  ever  in  his  life.  When,  in  reply 
to  the  clerk  of  the  court,  the  foreman  answered  "  Aye  "  to  the 
question  whether  John  Brown  was  guilty  of  treason,  and  con 
spiring  and  advising  with  slaves  and  others  to  rebel,  and  mur 
der  in  the  first  degree,  that  leader  of  men  said  not  a  word. 
Turning,  he  readjusted  the  covers  of  his  pallet  and  stretched 
himself  upon  it  as  if  he  had  no  interest  in  the  proceedings. 
Indeed,  if  he  had  expressed  any  interest,  it  would  doubtless 
have  been  jubilation.  For  by  then  John  Brown  had  dreamed 
his  dream  and  seen  his  vision.  There  had  come  to  him,  as  by 
a  revelation,  the  knowledge  that  through  the  portals  of  death 
alone  lay  the  way  to  the  success  denied  in  life.  His  eagle  eye 
had  pierced  the  veil  of  the  future;  it  was  as  if  it  had  been 
given  to  him  to  see  tramping  over  the  hills  of  Virginia  those 
blue-coated  hosts  to  whom,  two  years  later,  John  Brown  was 
neither  lunatic,  nor  fanatic,  nor  murderer.  He  had  become, 
in  his  own  words,  "fully  persuaded  that  I  am  worth  incon 
ceivably  more  to  hang  than  for  any  other  purpose,"  79  and  the 
longer  he  lay  in  his  prison  cell  and  wore  his  chains,  the  more 
ready  was  he  for  the  sacrifice  and  the  atonement.  His  only 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  497 

fear  had  been  that  all  the  effect  of  his  work  would  be  undone 
by  a  pronunciamento  that  he  was  insane. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Charles  town  crowd  and  of  Virginia 
that  not  a  single  sound  of  elation  or  of  triumph  assailed  the 
dignity  of  the  court,  when  the  jury  sealed  Brown's  doom.  In 
solemn  silence  the  crowd  heard  Mr.  Chilton  make  his  formal 
motion  for  an  arrest  of  judgment  because  of  errors  in  the  in 
dictment  and  in  the  verdict,  and  it  filed  out  equally  silent 
when  Judge  Parker,  owing  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  counsel 
on  both  sides,  ordered  the  motion  to  stand  over  until  the  next 
day.  The  judge  lost,  however,  not  a  moment  in  beginning 
the  trial  of  Edwin  Coppoc,  for  a  jury  was  sworn  that  after 
noon. 

On  November  I  the  argument  on  the  motion  was  heard, 
John  Brown  again  lying  on  his  cot,  though  now  fully  able  to 
walk.  Judge  Parker  reserved  his  decision,  but  only  for  twenty- 
four  hours.  For  on  November  2  came  the  final  act  in  the 
court-room.  Judge  Parker  afterward  wrote: 

"  I  went  into  court  at  the  usual  early  hour  with  an  opinion  I  had 
prepared  the  preceding  night,  in  which  I  had  at  length  stated  the  rea 
sons  for  over-ruling  the  objections  which  Brown's  counsel  had  made 
to  judgment  being  rendered,  intending  to  pronounce  it  so  soon  as 
the  court  was  opened;  but  a  jury  for  the  trial  of  Coppoc  .  .  .  were 
in  their  seats,  and  as  the  same  objections,  or  some  of  them,  might 
be  made  in  this  case  as  had  been  presented  in  that  of  Brown,  I  re 
frained  from  reading  the  opinion.  I  did  this  because  by  the  Vir 
ginia  practice  a  jury  in  a  criminal  case  were  held  to  be  judges  of 
the  law  as  well  as  triers  of  facts,  and  I  would  do  nothing  to  prejudice 
this  their  right.  For  this  reason  I  did  not  overrule  Brown's  motion 
in  arrest  until  late  on  the  day,  after  a  verdict  was  rendered  in  the 
case  of  Coppoc.'" 

Again  there  was  a  thrill  in  the  crowded  court-room,  when 
the  clerk  asked  John  Brown  whether  he  had  anything  to  say 
why  sentence  should  not  be  pronounced  upon  him.  And  well 
the  crowd  might  be  stirred,  for  what  it  was  now  to  hear  from 
the  lips  of  the  man  for  whose  life  it  thirsted  must  forever 
remain  on  the  list  of  great  American  speeches,81  an  utter 
ance  worthy  not  merely  of  the  man  who  voiced  it,  but  of 
the  mighty  cause  of  human  freedom  for  which  he  struck  so 
powerful  a  blow.  Drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  stature,  with 
flashing  eagle  eyes  and  calm,  clear  and  distinct  tones,  John 


498  JOHN  BROWN 

Brown  again  addressed,  not  the  men  who  surrounded  him,  but 
the  whole  body  of  his  countrymen,  North,  South,  East  and 
West:* 

"  I  have,  may  it  please  the  Court,  a  few  words  to  say. 

"In  the  first  place,  I  deny  everything  but  what  I  have  all  along 
admitted:  of  a  design  on  my  part  to  free  slaves.  I  intended  cer 
tainly  to  have  made  a  clean  thing  of  that  matter,  as  I  did  last  win 
ter,  when  I  went  into  Missouri  and  there  took  slaves  without  the 
snapping  of  a  gun  on  either  side,t  moving  them  through  the  coun 
try,  and  finally  leaving  them  in  Canada.  I  designed  to  have  done 
the  same  thing  again  on  a  larger  scale.  That  was  all  I  intended. 
I  never  did  intend  murder,  or  treason,  or  the  destruction  of  pro 
perty,  or  to  excite  or  incite  slaves  to  rebellion,  or  to  make  insur 
rection. 

"I  have  another  objection,  and  that  is  that  it  is  unjust  that  I 
should  suffer  such  a  penalty.  Had  I  interfered  in  the  manner  which 
I  admit,  and  which  I  admit  has  been  fairly  proved  —  for  I  admire 
the  truthfulness  and  candor  of  the  greater  portion  of  the  witnesses 
who  have  testified  in  this  case  —  had  I  so  interfered  in  behalf  of 
the  rich,  the  powerful,  the  intelligent,  the  so-called  great,  or  in 
behalf  of  any  of  their  friends,  either  father,  mother,  brother,  sister, 
wife  or  children,  or  any  of  that  class,  and  suffered  and  sacrificed 
what  I  have  in  this  interference,  it  would  have  been  all  right.  Every 
man  in  this  Court  would  have  deemed  it  an  act  worthy  of  reward 
rather  than  punishment. 

"This  Court  acknowledges,  too,  as  I  suppose,  the  validity  of  the 
law  of  God.  I  see  a  book  kissed,  which  I  suppose  to  be  the  Bible, 
or  at  least  the  New  Testament,  which  teaches  me  that  all  things 
whatsoever  I  would  that  men  should  do  to  me,  I  should  do  even  so 
to  them.  It  teaches  me,  further,  to  remember  them  that  are  in 
bonds  as  bound  with  them.  I  endeavored  to  act  up  to  that  instruc-" 
,tion.  I  say  I  am  yet  too  young  to  understand  that  God  is  any  re 
specter  of  persons.  I  believe  that  to  have  interfered  as  I  have  done, 
as  I  have  always  freely  admitted  I  haye  done,  in  behalf  of  His  de 
spised  poor,  I  did  no  wrong,  but  right.^Now,  if  it  is  deemed  neces 
sary  that  I  should  forfeit  my  life  for  thfc  furtherance  of  the  ends  of 
justice,  and  mingle  my  blood  further  with  the  blood  of  my  children 

*  An  eye-witness,  Judge  Thomas  Russell,  wrote  in  the  Boston  Traveller,  No 
vember  5,  1859,  that  John  Brown  "delivered  the  remarkable  speech  which  you 
have  just  read,  speaking  with  perfect  calmness  of  voice  and  mildness  of  manner, 
winning  the  respect  of  all  for  his  courage  and  firmness.  His  self-possession  was 
wonderful,  because  his  sentence,  at  this  time,  was  unexpected,  and  his  remarks 
were  entirely  unprepared." 

t  This  statement  is  hard  to  understand  in  view  of  Stevens's  killing  of  Cruise. 
Brown  may  have  intended  to  speak  here  only  of  that  party  of  raiders  that  he 
himself  commanded. 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  499 

and  with  the  blood  of  millions  in  this  slave  country  whose  rights 
are  disregardecj  by  wicked,  cruel,  and  unjust  enactments,  I  say, 
let  it  be  done.W 

"Let  me  say  one  word  further.  I  feel  entirely  satisfied  with  the 
treatment  I  have  received  on  my  trial.  Considering  all  the  circum 
stances,  it  has  been  more  generous  than  I  expected.  But  I  feel  no 
consciousness  of  guilt.  I  have  stated  from  the  first  what  was  my 
intention,  and  what  was  not.  I  never  had  any  design  against  the 
liberty  of  any  person,  nor  any  disposition  to  commit  treason  or 
incite  slaves  to  rebel  or  make  any  general  insurrection.  I  never 
encouraged  any  man  to  do  so,  but  always  discouraged  any  idea  of 
that  kind. 

"Let  me  say,  also,  in  regard  to  the  statements  made  by  some  of 
those  who  were  connected  with  me,  I  hear  it  has  been  stated  by 
some  of  them  that  I  have  induced  them  to  join  me.  But  the  con 
trary  is  true.  I  do  not  say  this  to  injure  them,  but  as  regretting 
their  weakness.  Not  one  but  joined  me  of  his  own  accord,  and  the 
greater  part  at  their  own  expense.  A  number  of  them  I  never  saw, 
and  never  had  a  word  of  conversation  with,  till  the  day  they  came 
to  me,  and  that  was  for  the  purpose  I  have  stated. 

"Now,  I  have  done." * 

With  all  solemnity,  Judge  Parker  then  pronounced  the 
sentence  of  death,  and  fixed  Friday,  the  2d  of  December,  as 
the  date  of  execution,  specifying  that  the  hanging  should  be 
public,  and  recording  his  belief  that  no  reasonable  doubt  could 
exist  as  to  John  Brown's  guilt.  But,  injallowing  him  a  whole 
month  more  of  life,  the  judge  gave  him  that  "opportunity  to 
influence  public  opinion  in  the  North  in  his  favor,  of  which 
he  so  admirably  availed  himself./lt  was  a  bitter  disappoint 
ment  to  Hunter  that  Judge  Parker  permitted  the  condemned 
man  to  live  so  long.  Indeed,  one  of  the  leading  men  in  the 
county,  when  informed  in  advance  by  Mr.  Parker  that  he 
would  give  John  Brown  thirty  days  prior  to  his  execution, 
declared  that  then  there  would  be  a  grave  tumult  in  the  court 
room;  that  the  people  "would  tear  Brown  to  pieces  before 
he  could  be  taken  from  the  building."  This  somewhat  dis 
turbed  the  judge,  who  notified  the  jailer,  Captain  Avis,  what 
to  expect,  but  declined  to  let  soldiers  into  the  court-room; 
for  he  could  not  get  over  the  jurist's  righteous  repugnance 
to  seeing  "armed  men  in  a  court  of  justice."  When  the  sen 
tence  was  pronounced,  there  was  again  perfect  order  in  the 
court-room;  one  man  clapped  his  hands,  but  was  promptly 
suppressed,  the  citizens  expressing  due  regret,  afterward,  at 


500  JOHN  BROWN 

this  breach  of  decorum.  The  judge  then  ordered  all  present 
to  retain  their  seats  until  the  prisoner  was  removed.  There 
was  prompt  obedience,  and  John  Brown  reached  his  cell  un 
harmed,  without  even  hearing  a  taunt.83  In  view  of  the  pub 
lic  fears  and  excitement,  such  self-control  does  great  credit  to 
this  deeply  stirred  Virginia  community. 

With  John  Brown  sentenced  to  be  hanged,  Governor  WTise 
became  immediately  the  recipient  of  much  individual  and 
journalistic  advice  as  to  what  course  he  should  pursue.  The 
Joint  Committee  of  the  Virginia  General  Assembly  reported, 
the  following  January,  that, 

"a  great  many  letters  were  received  by  the  Governor  from  citizens 
of  Northern  states,  urging  him  to  pardon  the  offenders,  or  to  com 
mute  this  punishment.  Some  of  them  were  written  in  a  spirit  of 
menace,  threatening  his  life  and  that  of  members  of  his  family. 
.  .  .  Others  gave  notice  of  the  purpose  of  resolute  bands  of  despera 
does  to  fire  the  principal  towns  and  cities  of  Virginia.  .  .  .  Others 
appealed  to  his  clemency,  to  his  magnanimity,  and  to  his  hopes  of 
future  political  promotion  as  ...  motives  for  his  intervention  in 
behalf  of  the  convicted  felons.  Another  class  (and  among  these  were 
letters  from  men  of  national  reputation)  besought  him  to  pardon 
them  on  the  ground  of  public  policy.'" 

But  even  in  the  South  there  were  two  voices,  those  that 
were  for  execution  of  the  sentence,  and  those  that  wished 
mercy  to  be  shown.  "Like  the  neighboring  population,  we 
go  in  for  a  summary  vengeance,"  said  the  Savannah  Repub 
lican.  "A  terrible  example  should  be  made,  that  will  stand 
out  as  a  beacon-light  in  all  time  to  come."  85  "Virginia  and  the 
South  are  ready  to  face  all  the  consequences  of  the  execution 
of  old  Brown  and  his  confederates,"  wrote  the  Richmond 
Whig:  I 

"  Though  it  convert  the  whole  Northern  people,  without  an  ex 
ception,  into  furious,  armed  abolition  invaders,  yet  old  Brown  will 
be  hung  !  That  is  the  stern  and  irreversible  decree,  not  only  of  the 
authorities  of  Virginia,  but  of  the  PEOPLE  of  Virginia,  without  a  dis 
senting  voice.  And,  therefore,  Virginia,  and  the  people  of  Virginia, 
will  treat  with  the  contempt  they  deserve,  all  the  craven  appeals  of 
Northern  men  in  behalf  of  old  Brown's  pardon.  The  miserable  old 
traitor  and  murderer  belongs  to  the  gallows,  and  the  gallows  will  have 
its  own." 8e 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  501 

These  sentiments  were  shared  in  the  North  by  the  New 
York  Observer,  the  organ  of  the  Presbyterians,  and  the  Herald, 
of  course,  could  see  no  reason  why  the  law  should  not  claim 
its  victims. 

But  there  were  other  voices  in  both  sections.  Thus  the 
New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  rabidly  pro-slavery  and  bit 
ter  in  its  denunciations  of  Brown,  thought  that: 

"To  hang  a  fanatic  is  to  make  a  martyr  of  him  and  fledge  another 
brood  of  the  same  sort.  Better  send  these  creatures  to  the  peniten 
tiary,  and  so  make  of  them  miserable  felons.  In  the  present  state 
of  the  country,  the  latter  course  is,  no  doubt,  the  wisest;  and  if 
those  men  in  Virginia  who  desire  to  apply  the  Lynch  code  to  the 
helpless  wretches  now  awaiting  trial,  reflect  for  a  moment,  they 
will  perceive  the  folly  of  such  a  course.  They  would  not  only  dis 
grace  their  State,  but  place  another  weapon  in  the  hands  of  their 
enemies.  The  murder  of  Joe  Smith  did  not  check  Mormonism,  but 
rather  gave  it  a  new  impetus;  nor  would  the  hanging  of  scores  of 
Abolitionists  have  any  better  effect.  Monsters  are  hydra-headed, 
and  decapitation  only  quickens  vitality,  and  power  of  reproduc 
tion."  87 

The  Liberator,  which  was  the  particular  abomination  of  the 
Journal  of  Commerce,  was  for  once  of  the  same  opinion.  "It 
will  be  a  terribly  losing  day  for  all  Slavedom,"  wrote  Mr. 
Garrison,  "when  John  Brown  and  his  associates  are  brought 
to  the  gallows."88  From  the  Berry  ville,  Virginia,  Clarke  Jour 
nal  came  this  wise  warning : 

"  As  a  Christian  people  we  are  bound  to  respect  the  motives  of  the 
sincere  and  conscientious,  however  mistaken.  We  do  not  care  to 
weaken  our  position  by  shedding  the  blood  of  such  and  giving  them 
no  time  for  repentance,  if  we  can  free  ourselves  from  their  annoyance 
by  their  confinement,  as  we  would  confine  a  mad  dog.  But  blood  for 
blood  has  been  shed  —  more  blood  on  their  side  than  on  ours.  It  is 
now  only  a  question  of  policy  as  to  the  further  proceeding.  Will  it  do 
more  good  to  go  on  shedding  blood  while  we  can  find  any  to  shed,  or 
to  stop  now  and  confine  the  rest  for  life?  Our  judgment  is  —  and 
we  are  bound  to  give  it,  if  every  subscriber  stops  his  paper,  as  we 
have  been  threatened  to  some  extent  —  in  favor  of  the  latter.  More 
good  can  be  done,  as  a  pure  question  of  policy,  by  staying  the  effu 
sion  of  blood.  Now,  if  this  be  treason,  make  the  most  of  it.  We  will 
be  as  ready  to  die  for  a  conviction  as  John  Brown.  As  a  pure  ques 
tion  of  policy,  we  have  most  to  gain  by  a  moderate,  placable,  con 
servative  course.  .  .  .  But  now  the  deed  is  done,  and  blood  has 
been  shed  in  return,  and  a  few  are  fugitives  and  outcasts  on  the 


502  JOHN  BROWN 

earth,  and  the  rest  are  in  chains  and  dungeons.  How  much  more 
can  a  generous,  magnanimous  people  ask?  How  will  it  appear  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world,  the  unfavoring  world  to  slavery,  to  ask  more 
—  even  to  the  last  drop  o/  their  blood  ?  We  must  remember  that  but 
a  small  part  of  the  Christian  and  civilized  world  are  on  our  side  in 
regard  to  Slavery."1 

A  Kentucky  newspaper,  the  Frankfort  Yeoman,  held  simi 
lar  views : 

"If  old  John  Brown  is  executed,  there  will  be  thousands  to  dip 
their  handkerchiefs  in  his  blood ;  relics  of  the  martyr  will  be  paraded 
throughout  the  North  .  .  .  and  Governor  Wise  would  be  compared 
to  Julian  the  Apostate  or  to  Graham  of  Claverhouse.  ...  If  a  Eu 
ropean  despot  .  .  .  can  strike  the  chains  from  thousand  of  captives 
.  .  .  think  of  the  shame  that  must  rest  upon  the  commonwealth  of 
Virginia  ...  if  her  security  demands  and  receives  the  blood  of  one 
old  brave  bad  man." 

Among  the  thousands  of  other  letters  prophesying,  threat 
ening,  imploring  or  arguing  for  John  Brown's  life,  none  was 
more  interesting  than  that  from  Fernando  Wood,  the  notori 
ous  New  York  politician,  soon  to  be  chosen  for  the  third  time 
mayor  of  the  city  in  which  he  wrote : 

"  Your  proceedings  and  conduct  thus  far  in  the  matter  of  the 
conspiracy  at  Harper's  Ferry  meets  with  general  approval,  and 
elicits  commendation  from  your  enemies.  The  firmness  and  mod 
eration  which  has  characterized  your  course  cannot  be  too  highly 
applauded  and  today  you  stand  higher  than  any  other  man  in  the 
Union.  Now,  my  friend,  dare  you  do  a  bold  thing  and  temper  'jus 
tice  with  Mercy'  ?  Have  you  nerve  enough  to  send  Brown  to  the 
States  Prison  instead  of  hanging  him?  Brown  is  looked  upon  here 
as  the  mere  crazy  or  foolhardy  emissary  of  other  men.  Circum 
stances  create  a  sympathy  for  him  even  with  the  most  ultra  friends 
of  the  South.  I  am  of  this  latter  class,  as  by  recent  speeches  you 
may  have  observed.  No  southern  man  could  go  further  than  myself 
in  behalf  of  southern  rights,  but  yet  were  I  the  Governor  of  Virginia, 
Brown  should  not  be  hung,  though  Seward  should  be  if  I  could 
catch  him.  And  in  such  a  course  my  conduct  would  be  governed 
by  sound  policy.  The  South  will  gain  by  showing  that  it  can  be 
magnanimous  to  a  fanatic  in  its  power.  We  who  fight  its  battles 
can  gain  largely  by  pointing  to  such  an  instance  of  'chivalry.' " 91 

Governor  Wise's  reply  is  so  characteristic  of  the  man,  and 
states  so  clearly  the  reasons  which  actuated  him  in  refusing 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  503 

to  urge  clemency  or  mitigation  of  sentence  upon  the  Legis 
lature, —  which  alone  had  the  power  to  so  act  in  treason 
cases,  although  the  Governor's  language  conveys  a  different 
impression, —  that  it  merits  consideration  here: 


RICHMOND  VA  Nov.  4th,  1859.  ~" 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  duly  received  and  weighed  every  word  of 
your  letter.  I  give  it  all  credit  for  good  motive  and  good  morals, 
and  as  suggesting  what  perhaps  is  good  policy.  Now,  listen  to  me, 
for  my  mind  is  inflexibly  made  up. 

Had  I  reached  Harpers  Ferry  before  these  men  were  captured 
(and  I  would  have  reached  there  in  time,  had  I  been  forwarded  as  I 
ought  to  have  been  from  Washington  &  the  relay  house),  I  would 
have  proclaimed  martial  law,  have  stormed  them  in  the  quickest  pos 
sible  time,  have  given  them  no  quarter,  and  if  any  had  survived,  I 
would  have  tried  and  executed  them  under  sentence  of  Court  Martial. 
But  I  was  too  late.  The  prisoners  were  captives,  and  I  then  deter 
mined  to  protect  them  to  the  uttermost  of  my  power,  and  I  did 
protect  them  with  my  own  person.  I  escorted  them  to  prison  and 
placed  around  them  such  a  force  as  to  overawe  Lynch-law.  Every 
comfort  was  given  them  by  my  orders.  And  they  have  been  scrupu 
lously  afforded  a  fair  and  speedy  trial,  with  every  opportunity  of 
defence  for  crimes,  which  were  openly  perpetrated  before  the  eyes 
of  hundreds  and  as  openly  confessed.  They  could  escape  conviction 
only  by  technical  exceptions,  and  the  chances  for  these  they  had  to 
a  greater  degree  by  the  expedition  of  prosecution.  And  the  crimes 
deliberately  done  by  them  are  of  the  deepest  and  darkest  kind  which 
can  be  committed  against  our  people.  Brown,  the  chief  leader,  has 
been  legally  and  fairly  tried  and  convicted  and  admits  the  humanity 
of  his  treatment  as  a  prisoner,  the  truth  of  the  indictment  and  the 
truthfulness  of  the  witnesses  against  him.  He  has  been  allowed 
excess  of  counsel,  and  the  freedom  of  speech  beyond  any  prisoner 
known  to  me  in  our  trials.  It  was  impossible  not  to  convict  him. 
He  is  sentenced  to  be  hung;  —  that  is  the  sentence  of  a  mild  code 
humanely  adjudged  and  requires  no  duty  from  me  except  to  see  that 
it  be  executed.  I  have  to  sign  no  death  warrant.  If  the  Executive 
interposes  at  all,  it  is  to  pardon.  And  to  pardon  him  I  have  received 
petitions,  prayers,  threats,  from  almost  every  free  State  in  the 
Union. /From  honest  patriotic  men  like  yourself,  many  of  them,  I 
am  warned  that  hanging  will  make  him  a  Martyr.  Ah !  —  Will  it?  — 
Why?  —  The  obvious  answer  to  that  question  shows  me  above  any 
thing  the  necessity  for  hanging  him.  You  ask:  —  " Have  you  nerve 
enough  to  send  Brown  to  States  Prison  for  life  instead  of  hanging 
him?"  —  Yes,  if  I  didn't  think  he  ought  to  be  hung  and  that  I  would 
be  inexcusable  for  mitigating  his  punishment.  I  could  do  it  without 
flinching,  without  a  quiver  of  a  muscle  against  a  universal  clamor 


504  JOHN  BROWN 

for  his  life.  But  was  it  ever  known  before  that  it  would  be  impolitic 
for  a  state  to  execute  her  laws  against  the  highest  crimes  without 
bringing  down  upon  herself  the  vengeance  of  a  public  sentiment 
outside  of  her  limits  and  hostile  to  her  laws?  —  Is  it  so  that  it  is 
wisely  said  to  her  that  she  had  better  spare  a  murderer,  a  robber, 
a  traitor,  because  public  sentiment  elsewhere  will  glorify  an  insur 
rectionist  with  Martyrdom?  If  so  it  is  time  to  do  execution  upon 
him  and  all  like  him.  And  I  therefore  say  to  you  firmly  that  I  have 
precisely  the  nerve  enough  to  let  him  be  executed  with  the  certainty 
of  his  condemnation.  He  shall  be  executed  as  the  law  sentences  him, 
and  his  body  shall  be  delivered  over  to  surgeons,  and  await  the 
resurrection  without  a  grave  in  our  soil.  I  have  shown  him  all  the 
mercy  which  humanity  can  claim. 

Yours  truly 

HENRY  A.  WISE.M 
HON.  F.  WOOD. 

This  last  threat  Governor  Wise  thought  better  of  later  on.* 
But  his  purpose  not  to  interfere  with  the  court's  decree,  or  to 
use  his  influence  with  the  Legislature,  was  not  to  be  changed. 
Two  days  after  his  answer  to  Fernando  Wood,  he  wrote  to 
Andrew  Hunter,  at  Charlestown:  "I  wish  you  to  understand, 
confidentially,  that  I  will  not  reprieve  or  pardon  one  man  now 
after  the  letters  I  have  rec'd  from  the  North."  93  After  Brown's 
death,  in  a  message  to  the  Legislature  of  December  5,  1859, 
Governor  Wise  officially  put  on  paper  more  elaborate  reasons 
for  his  position.94  He  admitted  in  this  message,  however,  as 
to  the  raid,  that, 

"causes  and  influences  lie  behind  it  more  potent  far  than  the  little 
band  of  desperadoes  who  were  sent  ahead  to  kindle  the  sparks  of  a 

*  Among  the  letters  received  by  Governor  Wise  was  one  from  Dr.  Lewis  A. 
Sayre,  of  New  York,  suggesting  dissection  as  part  of  the  punishment;  and  the 
following  ghoulish  note  from  a  Virginia  professor  to  Andrew  Hunter  is  worthy  of 
preservation:  — 

RICHMOND,  Nov.  i,  1859.  DEAR  SIR,  —  We  desire,  if  Brown  and  his  coadjutors 
are  executed,  to  add  their  heads  to  the  collection  in  our  museum.  If  the  transfer 
ence  of  the  bodies  will  not  exceed  a  cost  of  five  dollars  each,  we  should  also  be  glad 
to  have  them.  This  request  will,  of  course,  not  interfere  with  any  clemency  which 
it  may  be  found  desirable  to  extend  to  those  convicted.  Attention  to  this  request 
will  confer  a  great  favor. 

A.  E.  PETICOLAS,  M.D. 

Prof  Anat  at  Med. 

College  of  Va. 

These  two  letters  are  respectively  in  the  Tatham  Collection  and  in  the  Massa 
chusetts  Historical  Society. 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  505 

general  conflagration.  .  .  .  Indeed,  if  the  miserable  convicts  were 
the  only  conspirators  against  our  peace  and  safety,  we  might  have 
forgiven  their  offences  and  constrained  them  only  by  the  grace  of 
pardon.  But  an  entire  social  and  sectional  sympathy  has  incited 
their  crimes  and  now  rises  in  rebellion  and  insurrection,  to  the 
height  of  sustaining  and  justifying  their  enormity." 

Obviously,  if  the  "  miserable  convicts  "  were  merely  the  petty 
tools  of  a  great  and  monstrous  "rebellion  and  insurrection," 
the  Governor's  flight  of  rhetoric  to  Fernando  Wood  was  un 
called  for;  it  was  then  perfectly  proper  for  Virginia  to  take 
cognizance  in  her  actions  of  public  sentiment  elsewhere,  and 
to  be  guided  by  her  interpretation  of  it  in  her  punishment  of 
those  Abolition  "tools."  It  has  never  been  considered  im 
politic  for  a  State  to  have  due  regard  for  outside  sentiment 
when  that  was,  as  Governor  Wise  insisted  in  the  case  of 
Virginia,  menacing  its  very  existence. 

As  to  the  appeal  to  his  magnanimity,  the  Governor  said  in 
this  message:  "I  know  of  no  magnanimity  which  is  so  in 
humane,  .  .  .  which  would  turn  felons  like  these,  proud  and 
defiant  in  their  guilt,  loose  again  on  a  border  already  torn  by 
a  fanatical  and  sectional  strife  which  threatens  the  liberties 
of  the  white  even  more  than  it  does  the  bondage  of  the  black 
race."  Then  there  was  the  question  of  making  a  martyr  of 
Brown.  To  this  the  Governor's  reply  was: 

"To  hang  would  be  no  more  martyrdom  than  to  incarcerate  the 
fanatic.  The  sympathy  would  have  asked  on  and  on  for  liberation, 
and  to  nurse  and  soothe  him  whilst  life  lasted,  in  prison.  His  state  of 
health  would  have  been  heralded  weekly,  as  from  a  palace,  visitors 
would  have  come  affectedly  reverent,  to  see  the  shorn  felon  at  hard 
labor,  the  work  of  his  hands  would  have  been  sought  as  holy  relics, 
and  his  parti-colored  dress  would  have  become,  perhaps,  a  uniform 
for  the  next  band  of  marauders."  * 

*  Mr.  F.  E.  Spinner,  of  Worcester,  used  to  tell  of  one  occasion  when  Governor 
Wise  and  Senator  Mason  heard  Thaddeus  Stevens,  the  Pennsylvania  Congress 
man,  endorse  Governor  Wise's  action.  At  the  Relay  House,  the  Southerners  took 
seats  opposite  Mr.  Spinner  and  Congressman  Stevens.  As  the  former  related  it: 
"They  said  things  that  displeased  us.  I  said  to  Mr.  Stevens  that  it  was  a  pity  that 
Brown  had  not  been  sentenced  to  prison  for  life,  instead  of  being  made  a  martyr 
by  hanging.  Mr.  Stevens  had  evidently  longed  for  an  opportunity  to  give  the 
two  eminent  Virginia  statesmen  a  shot  in  return,  and  turned  to  me  and  said  in  a 
loud  voice:  '  No,  sir,  he  ought  to  have  been  hung  for  attempting  to  capture  Vir 
ginia  with  a  dozen  white  men,  five  negroes  and  an  old  cow.'  4  Why,  sir,'  he  said, 
'he  ought  to  have  taken  at  least  thirty  men  to  have  conquered  Virginia.'  " 


506  JOHN  BROWN 

A  pertinent  answer  to  this  is  that  there  was  such  a  thing 
possible  as  solitary  confinement,  and  that  not  every  jail  per 
mits  the  recording  of  its  prisoners'  health  or  doings,  or  their 
being  the  object  of  pilgrimage.  In  brief,  the  Governor's  logic 
is  not  convincing.  After  the  lapse  of  fifty  years,  it  still  ap 
pears  bad  tactics  and  policy  to  have  made  a  martyr  of  John 
Brown,  save  on  the  theory  that  secession  and  war  were  in 
evitable  and  might  as  well  be  hastened.*  Nothing  could  so 
have  solidified  Northern  sentiment  just  at  that  moment  as 
John  Brown  on  the  scaffold;  nor  made  men  in  that  section 
who  had,  heretofore,  refused  to  take  sides,  search  their  hearts 
and  decide  whether  they  were  for  or  against  human  bondage. 
From  that  time,  no  one  could  get  away  from  the  slavery  and, 
soon,  the  secession  issue,  try  as  he  might.  It  is  idle,  of  course, 
to  expect  that  Governor  Wise  should  have  foreseen  the  John 
Brown  song.  Yet,  afterwards,  when  leading  his  gallant  troops 
against  their  conquerors  from  the  North,  the  Governor  might 
sometimes  have  wished  that  his  enemies  were  not  profiting  so 
much  by  the  mighty  battle  hymn  in  regard  to  John  Brown's 
soul.  For  it  sent  them,  thrilling  and  inspired,  to  many  a  bat 
tlefield,  as  ready  to  die  for  freedom  as  had  been  the  man  whose 
name  was  on  their  lips. 

There  was  still  one  more  reason  for  clemency  urged  on 
Brown's  behalf  —  his  alleged  insanity.  The  despatch  received 
on  the  second  day  of  his  trial  by  his  counsel,  Lawson  Botts, 
read  thus: 

AKRON,  OHIO,  Thursday, 

Oct.  27,  1859. 
To  C.  J.  FAULKNER  and  LAWSON  BOTTS: 

John  Brown,  leader  of  the  insurrection  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and 
several  of  his  family,  have  resided  in  this  county  many  years.  In 
sanity  is  hereditary  in  that  family.  His  mother's  sister  died  with  it, 
and  a  daughter  of  that  sister  has  been  two  years  in  a  lunatic  asylum. 
A  son  and  daughter  of  his  mother's  brother  have  also  been  confined 
in  the  lunatic  asylum,  and  another  son  of  that  brother  is  now  insane 
and  under  close  restraint.  These  facts  can  be  conclusively  proven 

*  John  Sherman,  when  Secretary  of  State,  wrote  December  27,  1897,  to  the 
Rev.  Elijah  B.  Jones  at  Owatonna,  Minn.:  "It  would  have  been  wiser  to  have 
kept  him  [John  Brown]  in  confinement,  rather  than  to  execute  him  as  was  done 
for  his  Virginia  raid."  This  is  the  view  of  Judge  Roger  A.  Pryor,  a  bellicose  Vir 
ginia  Congressman  at  the  time  of  John  Brown's  raid,  later  a  gallant  Confederate 
soldier,  and  long  an  eminent  New  York  jurist. 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  507 

by  witnesses  residing  here,  who  will  doubtless  attend  the  trial  if 
desired. 

A.  H.  LEWIS.95 

Mr.  Lewis  was  vouched  for  by  the  Akron  telegraph  operator 
who  sent  the  message.  On  receiving  it,  Mr.  Botts  and  Mr. 
Green,  his  associate,  read  it  to  Brown,  who  at  once  absolutely 
declined  to  avail  himself  of  this  possible  means  of  escape  from 
the  hangman.  Not  even  to  save  his  life  would  he  consent  to 
have  the  sacrifices  already  made  minimized,  and  his  entire 
twenty  years'  war  upon  slavery  written  down  as  the  mere 
mania  of  a  lunatic.  He  informed  his  counsel  that  there  was 
no  insanity  on  his  father's  side,  but  admitted  that  there  were 
repeated  instances  of  mental  derangement  on  his  mother's 
side,  that  his  first  wife  was  similarly  afflicted,  and  two  of  her 
sons  (John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Frederick)  at  times.  Some  of  the 
statements  in  the  telegram  he  knew  to  be  correct;  others  were 
new  to  him.  Mr.  Botts  informed  the  court  of  John  Brown's 
refusal  to  avail  himself  of  the  plea  of  insanity,  and  of  his  igno 
rance  that  any  effort  was  being  made  in  Ohio  along  these 
lines  until  the  despatch  was  read  to  him.  As  Mr.  Botts  con 
cluded  his  statement,  the  prisoner,  raising  himself  up  on  his 
couch,  said: 

"I  will  add,  if  the  Court  will  allow  me,  that  I  look  upon  it  as  a 
miserable  artifice  and  pretext  of  those  who  ought  to  take  a  differ 
ent  course  in  regard  to  me,  if  they  took  any  at  all,  and  I  view  it 
with  contempt  more  than  otherwise.  As  I  remarked  to  Mr.  Green, 
insane  persons,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  have  but  little  ability 
to  judge  of  their  own  sanity;  and  if  I  am  insane,  of  course  I  should 
think  I  know  more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  But  I  do  not 
think  so.  I  am  perfectly  unconscious  of  insanity,  and  I  reject,  so 
far  as  I  am  capable,  any  attempt  to  interfere  in  my  behalf  on  that 
score."  90 

The  matter  did  not,  however,  rest  here.  On  November  7, 
Mr.  Griswold,  of  Brown's  counsel,  wrote  to  the  Governor, 
enclosing  a  petition  and  affidavit  from  one  Thompson,  af 
firming  the  charge  of  insanity,  and  added: 

"Whether  any  further  effort  will  be  made  to  obtain  Brown's  par 
don,  or  a  commutation  of  his  sentence  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  I  do 
not  know,  I  am  in  communication  with  no  person  on  this  subject. 


508  JOHN  BROWN 

But  I  avail  myself  of  this  occasion  to  say  that  my  conviction  is  that, 
on  questions  connected  with  slavery  and  the  liberation  of  the  slave, 
he  is  insane."  97 

Governor  Wise  responded  that  a  plea  of  insanity  could  be 
filed  at  any  time  before  conviction  or  sentence,98  and  wrote 
an  admirable  letter  to  Dr.  Stribling,  Superintendent  of  the 
Lunatic  Asylum  of  Staunton,  Virginia,  ordering  him  to  pro 
ceed  to  Charlestown  and  examine  the  prisoner,  saying:  "If 
the  prisoner  is  insane  he  ought  to  be  cured,  and  if  not  insane 
the  fact  ought  to  be  vouched  in  the  most  reliable  form,  now 
that  it  is  questioned  under  oath  and  by  counsel  since  con 
viction."  " 

Unfortunately,  the  impetuous  Governor  countermanded 
these  instructions,  and  the  letter  was  never  sent.  This  was 
a  genuine  misfortune,  for  the  word  of  so  eminent  an  alienist 
would  have  done  much  to  answer  the  question  which  has  puz 
zled  men  and  will  continue  to  puzzle  some,  as  long  as  the  story 
of  John  Brown  is  told.  On  the  23d  of  November,  Governor 
Wise  received  in  Washington,  from  George  H.  Hoyt  himself, 
nineteen  affidavits  that,  on  the  advice  of  Montgomery  Blair, 
had  been  collected  by  him  in  Ohio.100  The  good  friends  and 
relatives  there  were  not  willing  that  Brown  should  go  to  the 
scaffold  if  they  could  prevent  it.  To  save  him,  they  gladly 
laid  bare  some  sad  family  secrets.  These  affidavits  varied, 
so  far  as  John  Brown  himself  was  concerned,  from  statements 
that  he  was  occasionally  insane,  of  an  "unbalanced  mind," 
a  monomaniac,  to  outright  assertions  that  he  had  been  clearly 
insane  for  the  previous  twenty-four  years.  But  on  the  family 
record  they  all  agreed.  These  generous  admissions  of  nearest 
of  kin  proved  that,  aside  from  other  cases  of  less  serious  de 
rangement,  Brown's  grandmother  on  the  maternal  side,  after 
lingering  six  years  in  hopeless  insanity,  had  died  insane;  that 
of  his  grandmother's  children,  Brown's  uncles  and  aunts, 
two  sons  and  two  daughters  were  intermittently  insane,  while 
a  third  daughter  had  died  hopelessly  lunatic;  that  Brown's 
only  sister,  her  daughter  and  one  of  his  brothers  were  at  in 
tervals  deranged ;  and  that  of  six  first  cousins,  two  were  occa 
sionally  mad,  two  had  been  discharged  from  the  state  luna 
tic  asylum  after  repeated  commitments,  while  two  more  were^ 
at  the  time  in  close  restraint,  one  of  these  being  a  hopeless 


GUILTY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  509 

f 

case.  This  is  a  fearful  record,  and  one  surely  grave  enough, 
to  have  warranted  the  employing  of  alienists  to  make  certain 
that  Justice,  in  her  blindness,  did  not  execute  an  irresponsi 
ble  man. 

But  the  Governor  failed  to  act.  It  was  then  too  late  for  the 
issue  to  be  raised  legally,  for  there  was  no  procedure  by  which 
the  question  of  sanity  could  be  raised  after  the  sentence  had 
been  confirmed  by  the  Court  of  Appeals.  Governor  Wise 
had,  moreover,  personally  reached  a  decision  on  the  point,' 
after  repeatedly  seeing  and  conversing  with  the  prisoner  to 
whom  he  owes  so  much  of  his  fame.  "As  well  as  I  can  know 
the  state  of  mind  of  any  one,"  the  Governor  declared  to  the 
Virginia  Legislature, 

"  I  know  that  he  was  sane,  and  remarkably  sane,  if  quick  and  clear 
perception,  if  assumed  rational  premises  and  consecutive  reasoning 
from  them,  if  cautious  tact  in  avoiding  disclosures  and  in  cover 
ing  conclusions  and  inferences,  if  memory  and  conception  and 
practical  common  sense,  and  if  composure  and  self-possession  are 
evidence  of  a  sound  state  of  mind.  He  was  more  sane  than  his 
prompters  and  promoters,  and  concealed  well  the  secret  which  made 
him  seem  to  do  an  act  of  mad  impulse,  by  leaving  him  without  his 
backers  at  Harper's  Ferry;  but  he  did  not  conceal  his  contempt  for 
the  cowardice  which  did  not  back  him  better  than  with  a  plea  of 
insanity,  which  he  spurned  to  put  in  at  his  trial  at  Charlestown." 

No  historian  of  John  Brown  can  fail  to  take  note  of  the  facts 
in  the  affidavits,  and  to  scrutinize  the  life  of  his  subject  in 
the  light  thus  cast  upon  his  inheritance  from  one  line  of 
progenitors.  If  it  could  be  roundly  declared  that  he  was 
tially  or  wholly  deranged,  it  would  be  easy  to  explain  away 
those  of  his  acts  which  at  times  baffle  an  interpreter  of  this 
remarkable  personality,  —  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  for 
instance.  But  this  cannot  be  done.  Governor  Wise  was  cor 
rect  in  his  estimate  of  John  Brown's  mentality;  the  final 
proof  is  the  extraordinary  series  of  letters  written  by  him  in 
jail  after  his  doom  was  pronounced.  No  lunatic  ever  penned 
such  elevated  and  high-minded,  and  such  consistent  epistles. 
Tf_tv>  bft  dev^tM  to  one  idea,  or  to  a  single  causef  is  to  be 
a  monomaniac,  then  the  world  owes  much  of  its  progress 
^Toward  individual  and  racial  freedom  to  lunacy  of  this  variety. 
^f  Jghn  Brown  was  insane  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  so  were 


5io  JOHN  BROWN 

^Lucretia  Mott  and  Lydia  Maria  Child,  while  Garrison  and 
Phillips  and  Horace  Greeley  should  never  have  been  allowed 
to  go  at  large.  That  their  methods  of  advancing  their  joint 
,  l^'  cause  differed  from  John  Brown's  violent  ones,  in  no  wise 
argues  that  he  went  beyond  the  bounds  of  sound  reason  in 
his  efforts  for  freedom  for  the  blacks.  If  John  Brown  was 
the  victim  of  an  idee  fixe,  so  was  Martin  Luther,  and  so  were 
all  the  martyrs  to  freedom  of  faith.  But,  examining  his  record 
day  by  day,  weighing  all  the  actions  of  a  life  of  great  activity, 
and  reading  the  hundreds  of  letters  from  his  pen  which  have 
survived  to  this  hour,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that,  how 
ever  bad  his  judgment  at  times,  however  wild  the  planless 
assault  on  Harper's  Ferry,  John  Brown  himself  had  escaped 
the  family  taint,  —  and  this  despite  the  kindly  affidavits  of 
those  who  wished  to  save  him  from  the  gallows.  Moreover, 
while  lunatics  have  often  for  a  time  imposed  their  will  upon 
weaker  intellects,  persuaded  them  that  fancied  wrongs  were 
real,  and  nerved  them  to  acts  of  violence,  John  Brown  lived 
too  long  and  too  intimately  with  many  men  to  have  been 
le  to  mislead  them  always.  The  paranoiac  invariably  be 
trays  himself  at  last.  But  the  man  who  sacrifices  business 
prospects,  a  quiet  orderly  life,  his  family's  happiness,  and 
the  lives  of  himself  and  his  children,  in  a  crusade  wrhich  the 
world  has  since  declared  to  have  been  righteous  as  to  its 
object,  cannot,  because  of  his  devotion  to  that  purpose,  be 
adjudged  a  maniac  —  else  asylums  for  the  insane  have  played 
small  a  part  in  the  world's  history.  Dr.  Starry,  the  gallant 
physician  of  Harper's  Ferry,  said,  years  after  the  raid,  that 
such  devotion  as  Brown's  followers  had  for  him  he,  Dr.  Starry, 
had  never  beheld  before  or  since.  "They  perfectly  worshipped 
the  ground  the  old  fellow  trod  on."  101  The  hard-headed,  able 
Americans,  like  Stevens,  Kagi,  Cook  and  Gill,  who  lived  with 
John  Brown  month  in  and  month  out  and  were  ready  to  die 
with  him,  worshipped  no  lunatic. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED 

MANY  of  them  veterans  of  a  hundred  frontier  roils  or  dan 
gerous  anti-slavery  undertakings,  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  John  Brown's  friends  and  supporters  would  see  him  go 
to  his  death  at  the  hands  of  the  assaulted  Virginians  without 
lifting  a  finger  in  his  behalf.  No  sooner  was  he  safely  in  jail 
in  Charlestown,  and  his  recovery  from  his  wounds  certain, 
than  plotting  for  a  rescue  began.  To  the  Kansas  Free  State 
fighters,  capture  by  Border  Ruffian  forces  or  incarceration  in 
a  Southern  prison  did  not  imply  that  they  were  beyond  hope 
of  escape.  At  the  hour  of  Brown's  raid,  Dr.  John  Doy,  who 
had  been  rescued  from  the  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  jail  just  in 
time  to  avoid  serving  five  years  in  the  penitentiary  at  Jeffer 
son,  was  touring  the  North  and  lecturing  on  slavery  as  he 
had  found  it.  What  Kansans  had  done,  Kansans  could  do 
again,  and  Massachusetts  men,  too. 

The  first  to  move  were  John  W.  Le  Barnes  and  Thomas 
Wentworth  Higginson.  The  latter's  interest  was  to  have 
been  expected,  because  of  his  militant  record.  Other  clergy 
men  might  feel  scruples  about  taking  up  arms  when  wearing 
the  garb  of  the  church  and  teaching  the  doctrines  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  but  Mr.  Higginson  had  none.  He  sympathized  not 
at  all  with  the  Garrison  school  of  non-resistant  Abolitionists, 
and  he  had  unbounded  physical  and  moral  courage.  For  in 
stance,  on  May  26,  1854,  Mr.  Higginson  and  a  sturdy  negro 
were  the  first  of  the  men  who  broke  down  the  door  of  the  Bos 
ton  court-house,  in  a  brave  but  vain  attempt  to  save  Anthony 
Burns,  a  fugitive  slave,  from  being  returned  to  slavery.  Mr. 
Higginson,  unarmed  as  he  was,  attacked  the  policemen  and 
deputies  within  the  jail.  As  he  did  so,  a  shot  rang  out  and 
one  of  the  deputies  fell  dead,  —  the  first  Massachusetts  man 
to  lose  his  life  in  the  contest  over  slavery.1 

As  already  related,  Mr.  Le  Barnes  engaged  George  H.  Hoyt 
to  go  to  Harper's  Ferry,  ostensibly  as  counsel,  but  really  as 


5i2  JOHN  BROWN 

a  spy,  to  see  if  the  prison  could  be  stormed  and  Brown  and 
his  fellow  prisoners  set  free.  As  soon  as  Hoyt  had  obtained 
access  to  John  Brown,  he  revealed  to  him  the  plan  of  rescue 
then  under  way  in  Massachusetts,  and  urged  him  to  cooper 
ate  to  the  fullest  extent.  But  in  the  tone  of  command  which 
had  never  permitted  debate  on  the  plains  of  Kansas,  John 
Brown  made  it  clear  to  Hoyt  that  he  would  lend  himself  to 
no  scheme  of  rescue.  That  same  night,  October  28,  Hoyt 
wrote  to  his  employer  that  Brown  "positively  refused  his 
consent  to  any  such  plan;"2  and  what  he  said  to  Hoyt,  the 
prisoner  repeated  on  the  day  of  his  sentence  to  Judge  Thomas 
Russell,  of  Boston,  and  Mrs.  Russell,  and  later  on  to  his  old 
Free  State  friend,  S.  C.  Pomeroy,  subsequently  Senator  from 
Kansas.3  The  chimney  in  Brown's  prison-room  was  enormous; 
two  men  could  easily  have  got  up  or  down  it.  Jurist  as  he 
was,  Judge  Russell  looked  at  it  and  groaned:  "Two  good 
Yankees  could  get  these  men  out  and  away  so  easily!"  But 
Brown  was  "calm  and  at  peace;"  his  words  "measured  and 
quiet;"  the  longings  of  his  visitors  kindled  no  response  in 
kind.4  Besides  his  vision  of  what  his  death  would  mean  to 
his  cause,  he  felt  under  moral  obligation  to  his  jailer,  Cap 
tain  John  Avis,  for  many  kindnesses  received.  To  him  he  had 
already  given  his  pledge  not  to  attempt  to  escape.6 

His  positive  prohibition,  conveyed  through  Hoyt,  did  not, 
however,  check  the  ardor  of  his  friends.  Le  Barnes,  F.  B.  San- 
born,  James  Redpath,  R.  J.  Hinton  and  T.  W.  Higginson 
kept  up  their  plotting  until  November  28,  Higginson  vainly 
hoping  that,  since  Brown's  sentence  had  not  been  commuted, 
he  might  change  his  mind  about  desiring  aid.6  Even  a  second 
and  more  emphatic  warning  from  Hoyt  failed  to  deter  them. 
Writing  on  October  30  to  Le  Barnes,  the  young  lawyer  said : 

"  There  is  no  chance  of  his  [Brown's]  ultimate  escape;  there  is  no 
thing  but  the  most  unmitigated  failure,  &  the  saddest  consequences 
which  it  is  possible  to  conjure,  to  ensue  upon  an  attempt  at  rescue. 
The  county  all  around  is  guarded  by  armed  patrols  &  a  large  body 
of  troops  are  constantly  under  arms.  If  you  hear  anything  about 
such  an  attempt,  for  Heaven's  sake  do  not  fail  to  restrain  the  enter 
prise.1'  7 

In  his  ardor  for  a  rescue,  Mr.  Higginson  bethought  himself 
of  the  grief-stricken  family  at  North  Elba,  and  decided  to 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     513 

induce  Mrs.  Brown  to  visit  her  husband  and  urge  him  to  give 
his  consent  to  an  attempt  to  free  him.  This  he  was  successful 
in  doing.8  Mrs.  Brown  left  North  Elba  in  his  company  on 
November  2,  and  went  direct  to  Boston,  where  funds  were 
found  to  forward  her  to  Harper's  Ferry  by  way  of  Philadel 
phia,  from  which  place  she  was  escorted  to  Baltimore  by  J. 
Miller  McKim,  a  leading  Philadelphia  Abolitionist.9  As  soon, 
however,  as  Brown  learned  that  his  wife  was  on  the  way, 
he  telegraphed  to  Mr.  Higginson  through  George  Sennott10 
not  to  let  her  come.*  She  was  finally  reached  by  telegram  at 
Baltimore,  on  the  morning  of  November  8,  just  as  she  was 
about  to  take  a  Harper's  Ferry  train,11  and  there  ended  this 
effort  to  move  from  his  purpose  a  man  who  was  as  impregnable 
as  Gibraltar  when  his  mind  was  made  up.  Whether  Brown 
had  received  an  inkling  of  his  wife's  real  purpose  is  not  clear. 
He  wrote  thus  to  Mr.  Higginson,  in  explanation  of  Mr.  Sen- 
nott's  telegram,  on  the  Qth  of  November: 

If  my  wife  were  to  come  here  just  now  it  would  only  tend  to  dis 
tract  her  mind  TEN  FOLD  ;  and  would  only  add  to  my  affliction ;  and 
can  not  possibly  do  me  any  good.  It  will  also  use  up  the  scanty  means 
she  has  to  supply  Bread  &  cheap  but  comfortable  clothing,  fuel,  &c 
for  herself  &  children  through  the  winter.  Do  PERSUADE  her  to  re 
main  at  home  for  a  time  (at  least)  till  she  can  learn  further  from  me. 
She  will  receive  a  thousand  times  the  consolation  AT  HOME  that  she 
can  possibly  find  elsewhere.  I  have  just  written  her  there  &  will 
write  her  CONSTANTLY.  Her  presence  here  would  deepen  my  affliction 
a  thousand  fold.  I  beg  of  her  to  be  calm  and  submissive  ;  &  not  to  go 
wild  on  my  account.  I  lack  for  nothing  &  was  feeling  quite  cheerful 
before  I  heard  she  talked  of  coming  on  —  I  ask  her  to  compose  her 
mind  &  to  remain  quiet  till  the  last  of  this  month  ;  out  of  pity  to  me. 
I  can  certainly  judge  better  in  the  matter  than  any  one  ELSE.  My 
warmest  thanks  to  yourself  and  all  other  kind  friends. 

God  bless  you  all.  Please  send  this  line  to  my  afflicted  wife  by  first 
possible  conveyance. 

Your  Friend  in  truth 

JOHN  BROWN." 

George  L.  Stearns,  of  Boston,  was  the  first  to  turn  to  Kansas 
for  aid.  He  wrote  immediately  after  the  raid  to  Charles  Jen- 
nison  and  James  Stewart,  two  of  the  boldest  "jayhawkers" 
in  Kansas,  urging  them  to  help  Brown  escape,  and  author- 

*  Mr.  Sennott's  message  read:  "Mr.  Brown  says  for  God's  sake  don't  let  Mrs. 
Brown  come.  Send  her  word  by  telegraph  wherever  she  is." 


5H  JOHN  BROWN 

izing  them  to  draw  on  him  for  funds  if  there  was  anything 
they  could  do.13  They  do  not  seem  to  have  acted.  Captain 
James  Montgomery  and  Silas  C.  Soule,  who  had  played  an 
important  part  in  the  rescue  of  Dr.  John  Doy,  are  erroneously 
believed  to  have  come  East  promptly  and  looked  over  the 
field.  But,  as  Soule*  did  not  meet  Montgomery  until  he  pre 
sented  a  letter  of  introduction  from  James  H.  Lane  on  De 
cember  27,  it  is  obvious  that  they  could  not  have  been  East 
together  in  November.  It  is  certain  that  women  figured 
in  the  Kansas  plans,  as  well  as  in  the  Massachusetts  one.  A 
Miss  Mary  Partridge,  of  a  fighting  Free  State  family  of  Linn 
County,  whose  brother  George  was  killed  at  Osawatomie 
while  fighting  under  Brown,  was  selected  to  visit  him  in  his 
cell  at  Charlestown,  to  convey  information  of  the  plans  if  it 
could  be  given  to  the  captive  in  no  other  way.  Miss  Partridge 
was  to  throw  her  arms  around  Brown's  neck  and,  while  em 
bracing  him  most  affectionately,  was  to  get  into  his  mouth  a 
billet  giving  the  plan  of  campaign  and  the  time  of  the  attempt. 
Miss  Partridge  was  ready  and  willing  to  go  to  Virginia,  but 
Brown's  attitude  and  the  physical  and  financial  difficulties 
in  the  way  relieved  her  of  the  necessity  of  venturing  to  Har 
per's  Ferry.14 

To  Lysander  Spooner,  an  active  Abolitionist  of  Boston, 
belongs  the  credit  of  devising,  early  in  November,  an  au 
dacious  scheme  of  retaliation  upon  the  South  for  the  sen 
tencing  to  death  of  John  Brown,  which,  had  it  been  carried 
into  execution,  would,  as  Higginson  put  it  at  the  time,  have 
terrified  the  South  as  much  as  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair.16 
It  was  nothing  less  than  a  plan  to  kidnap  Governor  Wise 
some  evening  in  Richmond;  to  carry  him  aboard  a  sea-going 
tug,  and  hold  him  either  on  the  high  seas,  or  in  some  secret 
Northern  place,  as  hostage  for  the  safety  of  Brown.  That 
so  buccaneering  a  scheme,  worthy  of  the  imagination  of  a 
Marry  at  or  a  Cooper,  should  have  been  seriously  considered 
by  sober-minded  Boston  men  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  shows  clearly  how  rapidly  the  "irrepressible  con 
flict"  was  approaching.  Their  passionate  hatred  of  slavery 
had  led  them  to  sanction  Brown's  armed  attack  upon  it;  their 
disappointment  and  grief  over  his  failure  and  capture  made 
no  scheme  of  revenge  too  wild  for  their  consideration.  They 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     515 

actually  planned,  in  time  of  profound  peace,  to  steal  by  night 
into  the  capitol  of  a  friendly  State  and  carry  off  its  Chief 
Executive;  and  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  dauntless 
spirits  like  those  of  Le  Barnes  and  Higginson  would  have  set 
the  undertaking  afoot,  had  it  been  possible  to  raise  the  large 
sum  of  money  necessary.  They  were  willing  to  imitate  Brown 
and  "carry  the  war  into  Africa;"  if  the  government  was  not 
ready  to  begin  war  on  the  South  for  the  freedom  of  the  slaves, 
there  was  no  hesitation  on  their  part.  Looking  back  on  it 
now,  Mr.  Higginson  says  truly  that  "it  seems  almost  incredi 
ble  that  any  condition  of  things  should  have  turned  honest 
American  men  into  conscientious  law-breakers."  16  Only  a 
few  people  were  able,  in  the  heat  of  the  moment,  to  realize 
that  this  lawless  spirit  was  as  clear  an  indication  of  the  im 
pending  upheaval  as  were  those  acts  of  lawlessness  like  the 
Boston  Tea-Party  and  the  burning  of  the  schooner  Gaspee, 
which  preceded  the  Revolution. 

Spooner  first  broached  the  Wise  plot  to  Le  Barnes  in  Bos 
ton.17  Recourse  was  had,  before  the  middle  of  November,  to 
Higginson,  who,  having  been  for  some  years  a  stockholder 
in  a  yacht,  the  Flirt,  kept  in  commission  to  aid  incoming 
fugitive  slaves  and  circumvent  slave-catchers, l8  was  not  with 
out  sympathy  for  a  maritime  adventure.  Spooner  was  able 
to  report  to  him  within  a  week  that  Le  Barnes  had  discovered 
a  reliable  man  "who  will  undertake  to  find  the  men,  a  pilot, 
and  a  boat,  for  the  Richmond  expedition,  if  the  necessary 
money  can  be  had.  .  .  .  Will  you  not  come  down  at  once, 
and  help  to  move  men  here  to  furnish  the  money.  .  .  .  We 
can  do  nothing  without  you.  Do  not  fail  to  come."19  By  No 
vember  22,  Le  Barnes  wrote  20  that  he  had  no  doubt  that  the 
arrangements  could  be  made,  "it  is  the  money  that  is  uncer 
tain."  His  agent  was  in  the  shipping  business  and  could  fur 
nish  the  tug  and  crew  needed  without  causing  comment,  par 
ticularly  if  it  were  offered  for  sale  at  Richmond,  because  tugs 
were  just  then  in  great  demand  there.  Other  details  he  set 
forth  as  follows: 

"Tug  will  cost  $5000  to  $7000,  to  steam  15  to  18  knots  an  hour. 
There  is  only  one  gunboat  on  the  station,  (whether  in  the  Bay  or 
not,  is  not  precisely  known.)  But  this  makes  only  13  knots;  &  there 
is  nothing  else  as  fast  in  those  waters.  The  pilot  knows  all  the 


5i6  JOHN  BROWN 

rivers  of  that  region  thoroughly.  The  expedition  would  cost  ten  to 
fifteen  thousand  dollars.  $10,000  wd  be  necessary  to  start  with,  with 
more,  (say  proceeds  of  sale  of  boat)  promised  in  case  of  success. 
This,  if  it  were  necessary  to  hire  hands.  If  the  men  volunteered, 
the  expenses,  aside  from  the  security  of  the  boat  would  not  exceed 
$2000." 

But  Le  Barnes  declared  that  he  would  not  go  himself,  and 
did  not  "wish  any  of  our  men  led  into  it,"  although  if  a  safe 
agreement  could  be  reached  with  "professional  men,"  he 
would  make  the  arrangements.  With  money  the  thing  could 
be  done,  but  the  money  was  the  rub.  Where  could  it  be  had? 
He  himself  had  been  to  see  "W.  P."  [Wendell  Phillips],  who 
was  in  favor,  "if  our  men  will  go."  "  W.  I."  [Bowditch]  would 
contribute  to  the  project  if  it  was  undertaken,  but  "H.  I." 
[Bowditch]  was  opposed.  Le  Barnes  himself  was  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  "success  would  be  brilliant  —  defeat  fatally 
inglorious."  He  had,  moreover,  doubts  as  to  whether  the  suc 
cessful  kidnapping  of  Wise  would  save  John  Brown.  It  was, 
after  all,  the  judge  who  issued  the  warrant  of  death  and 
saw  to  its  execution,  not  the  Governor.  Still,  if  nothing  else 
could  be  done,  he  was  for  attempting  the  scheme.21  Grad 
ually,  however,  the  hopelessness  of  raising  the  money  became 
patent,  and  upon  this  obstacle  the  scheme  was  wrecked.  Le 
Barnes  was  one  of  the  last  to  give  it  up;  but  gradually  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  alternative  plan  of  a  deliberate  over 
land  invasion  of  Charlestown.  This  he  was  personally  quite 
willing  to  join.22 

Some  German-born  lovers  of  liberty  in  New  York,  who  had 
fought  tyranny  in  their  native  land,  were  brought  together 
in  a  meeting  on  November  22, 23  and  agreed  to  take  part  in 
an  attack  on  the  prison.  In  a  short  time,  "a  hundred  or  more " 
men  were  reported  to  the  Boston  conspirators  as  ready  to  go 
as  a  reinforcement  to  the  Ohioans  who,  so  rumor  said,  were 
preparing  to  move  on  Charlestown  under  John  Brown,  Jr. 
But  if  it  should  prove  that  there  were  no  Ohio  men  ready  to 
lead,  only  "from  15  to  20  or  25"  were  prepared  to  follow  Le 
Barnes,  Hinton  and  the  Kansas  leaders.24  By  Sunday,  Novem 
ber  27,  the  plan  was  to  rendezvous  some  distance  from  Charles- 
town,  to  make  a  cross-country  rush  on  that  town,  and,  after 
freeing  the  prisoners,  to  seize  the  horses  of  the  cavalry  com- 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      517 

panics  and  escape.  The  attack  was  to  be  either  on  Wednesday, 
November  30,  or  on  December  2,  the  day  of  the  execution, 
4 'at  the  hour,"  and  Le  Barnes  reported  from  New  York  that 
the  men  were  confident  of  success,  "  strange  as  it  may  seem 
to  us."26  Dr.  Howe  suggested  that  they  be  armed  with  "Or- 
sini"  bombs  and  hand-grenades,  in  lieu  of  artillery.  With 
these  weapons  he  felt  sure  they  would  terrify  the  Virginia 
chivalry  on  guard  in  Charles  town.28 

Again  it  became  a  question  merely  of  funds.  The  rescuers 
wanted  one  hundred  dollars  apiece,  and  an  agreement  that 
the  survivors  would  be  provided  for  in  places  of  safety,  and 
that  the  families  of  all  would  be  taken  care  of.  For  this  pur 
pose,  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  dollars  was  needed  by 
Tuesday  morning  the  29th,  and  five  hundred  or  a  thousand 
dollars  the  day  after.  Le  Barnes  demanded  also  that  a  definite 
promise  be  sent  on  the  following  day.27  James  Red  path  had 
been  previously  selected  to  go  to  Ohio  to  ascertain  just  what 
was  on  foot  there.  But  he  had  delayed  his  departure,  and  on 
the  day  Le  Barnes  wrote  this  ultimatum  in  regard  to  funds, 
and  added,  "It  is  for  you  in  Boston  to  say  'go'  or  'stay,'  " 
George  H.  Hoyt,  fresh  from  his  achievements  as  Brown's 
counsel,  arrived  in  Boston  from  the  Western  Reserve.  He 
reported  that  nothing  whatever  was  on  foot  in  Ohio.  The 
next  day,  discouraged  by  Hoyt's  news,  for  he  had  counted  on 
Ohio's  stirring,  and  being  unable  to  raise  the  needed  funds, 
Sanborn  in  Boston  gave  up  the  undertaking  and  wired  to  Le 
Barnes  to  return.  This  the  latter  did  after  telegraphing  to 
Higginson,  "Object  abandoned."  Sanborn  wrote  with  a  heavy 
heart  to  that  militant  clergyman:  "So  I  suppose  we  must 
give  up  all  hope  of  saving  our  old  friend."  28 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  Virginia  authorities  were 
without  a  belief  that  there  was  plotting  going  on.  In  his  mes 
sage  to  the  Legislature  after  the  execution,  Governor  Wise 
said :  "  I  did  not  remove  the  prisoners  further  into  the  interior, 
because  I  was  determined  to  show  no  apprehension  of  a  res 
cue  ;  and  if  the  jail  of  Jefferson  had  been  on  the  line  of  the  State, 
they  would  have  been  kept  there,  to  show  that  they  could 
be  kept  anywhere  chosen  in  our  limits."  29  But  for  all  this 
bravado  after  the  execution,  there  is  plenty  of  evidence,  be 
sides  the  extraordinary  assembling  of  troops  around  Brown's 


5i8  JOHN  BROWN 

scaffold,  to  show  Wise's  anxiety  and  that  of  Andrew  Hunter. 
Every  mail  brought  to  them  or  to  John  Brown,  whose  letters 
they  carefully  examined  and  withheld  if  they  saw  fit,  warn 
ings,  some  more  or  less  fantastic,  of  an  expedition  or  plan. 
Many  were  anonymous,  others  signed  by  Southern  sympa 
thizers  in  the  North,  and  still  others  were  plainly  written  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  alarming  and  deceiving  Governor  Wise 
and  the  military.30  From  Zanesville,  Ohio,  "T.  A.  B."  wrote 
that  he  had  seen  "between  30  &  36  men,  all  armed  with  Colts 
Six  Shooters  &  a  Species  of  home  made  Bowie  knife,  well 
calculated  to  do  Exicution,"  who  were  to  cross  the  Ohio  near 
"  Cisterville  "  with  two  hundred  and  seventy  others  and  arrive 
at  Harper's  Ferry  December  I.  "Harrisburg"  wrote  from 
Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania,  of  a  force  of  armed  men  who  were 
to  leave  there  in  time  to  free  Brown  on  the  day  of  execution. 
The  United  States  marshal  at  Cleveland  forwarded  a  letter 
from  North  Bloomfield,  Ohio,  which  reported  that  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  had  boasted  that  "9000  desperate  men"  were  in 
readiness,  and  that  his  father  would  not  be  hanged.  "  Henry  " 
wrote  from  Boston  to  Brown,  in  an  easily  read  cipher,  that 
"twenty  of  them  left  this  morning  and  thirty- three  start 
Thursday.  They  will  bring  you  with  them  or  die."  Phila 
delphia  reported  five  thousand  men  armed  with  "Pike's 
rifles"  and  four  cannon,  and  New  York  twenty-five  hundred 
men  who  were  to  attack  Charlestown  on  December  I ,  —  a 
little  late,  apparently,  because,  on  the  day  before,  eight  thou 
sand  desperate  men  from  Detroit,  sworn  to  rescue  Brown 
or  die,  and  more  than  "armed  to  the  teeth,"  were  to  fire  ten 
shots  a  minute  at  the  jail  guards  from  their  new-style  carbines. 
Some  of  these  missives  Hunter  endorsed,  "Contemptible 
nonsense,"  others  he  marked,  "Consider."  To  John  Brown 
himself  the  threatening  letters  caused  nothing  but  annoyance. 
"He  protests  against  them,"  reported  the  special  correspond 
ent  of  the  Richmond  Despatch  on  November  n,  "and  feels 
unwilling  to  believe  that  they  proceed  from  his  own  friends." 
To  the  correspondent  of  the  Tribune  he  thus  expressed  him 
self  on  November  4:  "I  do  not  know  that  I  ought  to  encour 
age  any  attempt  to  save  my  life.  I  am  not  sure  that  it  would 
not  be  better  for  me  to  die  at  this  time."  *  He  told  one  of  his 

*  Henry  Ward  Beecher  had  said  five  days  before :  "Let  no  man  pray  that  Brown 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      519 

guards,  not  long  before  his  execution,  that  his  friends  would 
surely  have  attempted  his  rescue  in  the  first  few  weeks,  had 
they  known  how  small  a  guard  was  on  duty,  but  that  he  hoped 
and  trusted  no  effort  would  then  be  made.31  But  Governor 
Wise  actually  thought  it  advisable  to  turn  over  to  the  mili 
tary  a  well-written  letter  from  Lewisburg,  Union  County, 
Pennsylvania,  telling  of  the  organization  of  ''The  Noble  Sons 
of  Liberty,"  numbering  about  five  hundred  and  led  by  "Capt. 
James  Smelly,  alias  Limber  Jim,  the  ultra-abolitionist."  Its 
members  were  to  drop  into  Charlestown  and  adjacent  places 
by  ones  and  twos,  and  then  on  a  given  signal  storm  the  jail. 
This  was  one  of  the  letters  that  led  to  the  extending  of  the 
pickets  well  outside  of  the  town.  Some  of  the  sentries  were 
a  full  mile  from  their  quarters,  and  it  took  an  hour  and  forty 
minutes  to  post  the  guard.32  Under  Mr.  Hunter's  advice, 
the  old  Southern  system  of  mounted  patrols  was  established 
in  every  precinct  of  the  county.33 

Before  that  took  place,  however,  there  had  been  a  bad  scare 
at  Harper's  Ferry,  on  October  26,  the  superintendent  of  the 
arsenal  having  received  " reliable  information"  that  an  at 
tempt  at  rescue  might  be  made  at  night  by  parties  from  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania.  President  Garrett,  of  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad,  was  not  willing  to  run  any  risks,  and  him 
self  called  out  a  company  of  Maryland  militia,  the  United 
Guards  of  Frederick,  who  reached  Harper's  Ferry  fifteen 
strong  that  evening,  with  a  promise  that  the  rest  of  the  com 
pany  would  arrive  in  the  morning.  "There  is  a  strong  guard 
on  duty,"  reported  that  evening  to  Mr.  Garrett  his  Master 
of  Transportation,  W.  P.  Smith,  "and  I  am  ordered  to  'halt* 
at  all  points  as  I  move  about  in  the  storm  and  darkness." 
But  he  added:  "The  feeling  of  uncertain  dread  is  very  strong, 
and  there  surely  ought  to  be  full  and  well-organized  reliance 
[reserve?]  to  restore  confidence."  34  That  the  Charlestown  au 
thorities  were  ready  to  take  extreme  measures  appears  from 
a  despatch  of  Colonel  J.  Lucius  Davis,  a  West  Point  graduate, 
with  a  long,  flowing  beard  and  of  othenvise  curious  appear- 

be  spared.  Let  Virginia  make  him  a  martyr.  Now,  he  has  only  blundered.  His  soul 
was  noble;  his  work  miserable.  But  a  cord  and  a  gibbet  would  redeem  all  that,  and 
round  up  Brown's  failure  with  a  heroic  success."  See  New  York  Herald  of  Octo 
ber  31  and  November  22.  When  John  Brown  read  this,  he  wrote  opposite  it  the 
single  word  "good." 


520  JOHN  BROWN 

ance,  who  was  the  immediate  commander  of  the  troops.  Tele 
graphing  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth  November  2, 
Colonel  Davis  said:  "We  are  ready  for  them.  If  attack  be 
made,  the  prisoners  will  be  shot  by  the  inside  guards."  35 

To  add  to  the  nervousness  of  the  authorities,  there  oc 
curred  in  the  neighborhood  of  Charlestown  a  number  of  fires, 
all  of  them  doubtless  accidental.  They  continued  through 
November,  instances  being  the  burning  of  the  barn  and 
stock-yards  of  Mr.  Walter  Shirley,  three  miles  from  Charles- 
town,  loss  four  thousand  dollars,  and  also  those  of  George  H. 
Tate  and  John  Burns,  all  three  of  whom  had  been  on  the  jury 
that  decided  Brown's  fate.36  Judge  Lucas's  haystack,  burned 
about  this  time,  was  but  one  of  many  that  lit  up  the  heav 
ens.  A  shot  fired  under  his  window,  another  night,  led  to 
the  belief  that  the  judge  had  been  marked  for  assassination, 
and  induced  the  mayor,  Thomas  C.  Green,  on  November  12, 
to  order  the  removal  from  Charlestown  of  all  strangers  who 
could  not  give  a  satisfactory  account  of  themselves.  Among 
those  forced  to  leave  on  that  day  were  George  H.  Hoyt,  who 
was,  however,  ready  to  go,  as  he  had  finished  his  legal  work 
for  Brown,  and  a  representative  of  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated 
Paper,  who  was  charged  with  the  grave  offence  of  being  a 
correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune.*1  But  the  fires  con 
tinued  to  be  recorded  in  almost  every  issue  of  the  Richmond 
papers  from  November  12  on.  The  resultant  dread  and  ner 
vousness  of  the  citizens  were  intensified  by  repeated  false 
alarms,  some  of  them  given  for  drill  purposes  by  Colonel 
Davis,  until  the  cry  of  wolf  no  longer  excited  people.38* 

But  the  return  home  of  an  excited  native  of  Charlestown, 
for  some  time  previously  a  resident  of  Kansas,  with  a  report 
that  five  hundred  Kansans  were  planning  a  rescue  and  were 
already  on  their  way,  did  thoroughly  frighten  the  town.  This 
man,  a  certain  Smith  Crane,  told  terrible  tales  of  the  band 
of  desperadoes  who,  in  Kansas,  always  had  rescued  Brown, 
and  would  again,  and  reported  overhearing  a  conversation 
in  Bellair,  Ohio,  —  whence  he  had  just  come,  —  in  which 
conspirators  had  detailed  their  plans  to  come  in  force  and 

*  Colonel  Davis  reported  on  November  19  that  "the  majority  [of  citizens] 
think  the  recent  fires  made  by  local  spy  companies  forming  everywhere,"  —  which 
illustrates  clearly  the  panic  then  prevailing.  —  Telegram  to  Governor  Wise.  — 
Original  in  Mr.  Edwin  Tathara's  collection. 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      521 

rescue  the  prisoner.  Curiously  enough,  Andrew  Hunter  re 
ceived  the  next  day  a  telegram  from  Marshal  Johnson,  of 
Cleveland,  saying  that  a  thousand  men  were  arming  there. 
The  coincidence  seemed  to  confirm  Crane's  stories,  and  cre 
ated  much  alarm  for  the  time  being.  Mr.  Hunter  himself 
was  convinced  of  their  truth.39 

That  all  of  this  had  its  effect  on  Governor  Wise's  nerves 
appears  clearly  in  his  letter  of  November  16  to  Andrew  Hun 
ter,  which  has  only  recently  been  brought  to  light: 

RICHMOND,  V\  Nov.  i6th,  1859. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Information  from  every  quarter  leads  to  the 
conviction  that  there  is  an  organized  plan  to  harrass  our  whole 
slave-border  at  every  point.  Day  is  the  very  time  to  commit  arson 
with  the  best  chance  agfc  detection.  No  light  shines,  nor  smoke 
shows  in  daylight  before  the  flame  is  off  &  up  past  putting  out.  The 
rascal  too  escapes  best  by  day;  he  sees  best  whether  he  is  not  seen, 
and  best  how  to  avoid  persons  pursuing.  I  tell  you  those  Devils 
are  trained  in  all  the  Indian  arts  of  predatory  war.  They  come,  one 
by  one,  two  by  two,  in  open  day,  and  make  you  stare  that  the  thing 
be  attempted  as  it  was  done.  But  on  the  days  of  execution  what  is  to 
become  of  the  borders?  Have  you  tho't  of  that?  5  or  10,000  people 
flock  into  Chastown  &  leave  homesteads  unguarded!  When  then 
but  most  burnings  to  take  place?  To  prevent  this  you  must  get 
all  your  papers  in  Jeff:  Berk:  &  Fredk  &  Morgan  &  Hamp:  to  beg 
the  people  to  stay  at  home  &  keep  guard.  Again  a  promiscuous 
crowd  of  women  &  children  would  hinder  troops  terribly  if  an  emeute 
of  rescue  be  made;  and  if  our  own  people  will  only  shoulder  arms 
that  day  &  keep  thus  distinct  from  strangers  the  guards  may  be 
prompt  to  arrest  &  punish  any  attempt.  I  have  ordered  200  minie 
muskets  to  be  sent  to  Charlestown  at  once  with  fixed  amtu  and  the 
Col8  of  Berkely,  Jeff:  &  Fred:  to  order  regt8  to  be  ready  at  a  moment. 
I  shall  order  400  men  under  arms.  Then,  ought  there  to  be  more 
than  one  day  of  execution?  Judge  P.  ought  to  have  thought  of  this, 
but  he  did  n't.  If  O  Appl8  dont  decide  before  2nd  Decr  I  '11  hang 
Brown.  If  they  do  &  sustain  sentence  will  it  not  be  best  to  post 
pone  his  extn  with  the  rest.  He  ought  to  be  hung  between  two  ne 
groes  &  there  ought  n't  to  be  two  days  of  excitement.  Again  it  gives  « 
Legislature  the  opportunity  of  uniting  with  Executive  in  hanging 
Brown.  Another  question.  Ought  /  to  be  there  ?  It  might  possibly 
be  necessary  in  order  to  proc:  M.  law.  Say  to  Col.  Davis  that  I 
have  ordered  him  to  act  as  Commissary  Gen1  for  all  the  troops  in 
Jefferson  and  he  must  remain  &  act  until  we  are  through.  The 
Gov*  may  pay  out  of  contingent  fund  &  I  gave  Mr.  Brown  the  forms 
of  U.  S.  army  t'other  day,  shall  of  course  call  on  Gen1  Assembly 
for  an  appropriation  the  first  week.  The  guards  must  be  kept  up 


522  JOHN  BROWN  j 

until  1 6th  Decr.  Watch  Harper's  Ferry  people.  Watch,  I  say,  and 
I  thought  watch  when  there.  Gerritt  Smith  is  a  stark  madman,  no 
doubt!  Gods,  what  a  moral,  what  a  lesson.  Whom  the  Gods  wish 
to  make  mad  they  first  set  to  setting  others  to  destroying.  .  .  . 

Yrs.  truly 

HENRY  A.  WiSE.40 
A.  HUNTER,  ESQ. 

Another  outbreak  of  fear  at  Harper's  Ferry,  two  days  after 
Governor  Wise  wrote  this  letter,  led  him  hastily  to  call  out 
four  hundred  men  in  Richmond  and  Petersburg,  and  go  with 
them  in  person,  on  November  20,  to  that  place  and  to  Charles- 
town,  which,  in  great  excitement,  were  momentarily  "ex 
pecting  from  one  to  two  hundred  armed  men  from  the  West 
to  rescue  Brown."  "Send  me  500  men  armed  and  equipped, 
instanter.  A  large  body  are  approaching  from  Wheeling, 
armed  with  pikes  and  revolvers.  Pardon  haste"  —  tele 
graphed  Colonel  J.  Lucius  Davis  to  Governor  Wise.  But 
this  was  too  much  for  that  ^excitable  official,  who  replied: 
"Be  cautious.  Commit  no  mistake  to-night.  Men  will  march 
to-morrow  morning."  41 

One  hundred  and  fifty  more  soldiers  reached  Harper's 
Ferry  with  cannon  on  November  21,  but  they  were  destined 
to  stay  only  a  short  time,  for  the  impulsive  Governor  ordered 
them  back  that  night.  The  railroad  men  were  at  a  loss  to 
know  why  the  Governor  had  called  out  so  many  men,  but 
thought  he  "must  be  in  possession  of  information  —  we  have 
not  —  to  justify  him."  All  except  one  company  were  on  their 
way  back  again  by  the  22d.  Four  days  later,  Governor  Wise 
began  the  concentration  of  troops  for  the  execution,  and  with 
it  came  the  end  of  what  may  truthfully  be  called  the  reign  of 
terror  in  Charlestown  and  Harper's  Ferry.42 

Andrew  Hunter's  state  of  mind  was  considerably  less  fever 
ish,  but  he  afterwards  admitted  his  genuine  alarm  lest  the 
none  too  strong  jail  be  attempted,  and  urged  every  possible 
precaution  as  the  day  of  execution  approached,  —  even  to 
the  extent  of  being  ready  to  tear  up  the  railroad  tracks.43 
Eight  days  in  advance  of  the  event  upon  which  the  interest 
of  the  nation  was  concentrated,  Governor  W7ise  sent  the  fol 
lowing  orders  to  Major-General  William  B.  Taliaferro,  then 
the  commander  of  the  troops  in  succession  to  Colonel  Davis, 
after  promising  more  soldiers: 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      523 

"...  keep  full  guard  on  the  line  of  frontier  from  Martinsburg  to 
Harper's  Ferry,  on  the  day  of  2d  Dec.  Warn  the  inhabitants  to  arm 
and  keep  guard  and  patrol  on  that  day  and  for  days  beforehand. 
These  orders  are  necessary  to  prevent  seizure  of  hostages.  Warn 
the  inhabitants  to  stay  away  and  especially  to  keep  the  women 
and  children  at  home.  Prevent  all  strangers,  and  especially  all  par 
ties  of  strangers  from  proceeding  to  Charlestown  on  2nd  Decr.  To 
this  end  station  a  guard  at  Harper's  Ferry  sufficient  to  control  crowds 
on  the  cars  from  East  and  West.  Let  mounted  men,  except  one  or 
two  companies,  remain  on  guard  at  the  outposts,  and  keep  one 
or  two  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  crowd  clear  of  the  outer  line 
of  military  on  the  day  of  execution.  Form  two  concentric  squares 
around  the  gallows,  and  have  strong  guard  at  the  jail  and  for 
escort  to  execution.  Let  no  crowd  be  near  enough  to  the  prisoner 
to  hear  any  speech  he  may  attempt.  Allow  no  more  visitors  to  be 
admitted  into  the  jail."44 

Greater  precautions  could  hardly  have  been  taken  had  a 
grave  state  of  war  existed,  with  a  menacing  and  active  enemy.- 

Not  content  with  the  militia  forces  which  he  could  and 
did  assemble,  including  the  cadets  from  the  Virginia  Military - 
Institute  at  Lexington,  Virginia,  one  of  whose  commanders 
was   Professor  T.  J.  Jackson,  later  famous  as   "Stonewall" 
Jackson,  Governor  Wise  induced  President  Buchanan  again  • 
to  send  Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee  to  Harper's  Ferry.    He  arrived 
there  on  November  30,  and  under  his  command  were  264 ' 
artillerymen  from  Fort  Monroe,  to  guard  the  bridges  and  town 
until  after  the  execution.    In  his  appeal  to  the  President,  on 
November  25,  to  keep  the  peace  between  the  States,  Gov 
ernor  Wise  stated  that  he  had  information  "specific  enough 
to  be  reliable"  which  convinced  him  that  "an  attempt  will 
be  made  to  rescue  the  prisoners,  and  if  that  fails,  then  to  seize 
citizens  of  this  State  as  hostages  and  victims  in  case  of  exe 
cution."    He  himself  had  called  out  one  thousand  militia,- 
and  if  necessary  he  would  "call  out  the  whole  available  force* 
of  the  State  to  carry  into  effect  the  sentence  of  our  laws  on  the 
2d  and  i6th  proximo."    He  added  that  "places  in  Maryland, 
Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  have   been  occupied  as  depots  and 
rendezvous  by  these  desperadoes,   unobstructed  by  guards 
or  otherwise  to  invade  this  State,  and  we  are  kept  in  continual 
apprehension  of  outrages  from  fire  and  rapine  on  our  bor 
ders."  45    How  unfounded  in  fact  these  allegations  were,  now 
appears  clearly.    The  most  careful  search  fails  to  reveal,  in 


524  JOHN  BROWN 

Ohio  or  elsewhere,  any  proof  that  there  were  actual  conspira 
cies  of  would-be  rescuers,  save  those  elsewhere  described.  In 
insisting  that  desperadoes  had  actually  occupied  rendezvous 
in  three  States,  Governor  Wise  was  merely  taking  counsel  of 
his  fears,  and  of  his  largely  anonymous  informants.  Never 
theless,  he  sent  copies  of  his  letter  to  the  Governors  of  those 
States,  and  by  arming  and  showing  his  great  anxiety,  he  be 
trayed  to  his,  for  the  greater  part  unknown,  correspondents 
that  they  had  accomplished  their  end,  —  the  terrifying  of  the 
great  State  of  Virginia. 

Naturally,  President  Buchanan,  while  willing  to  send  Colo 
nel  Lee  to  guard  United  States  property  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
characterized  Governor  Wise's  beliefs  as  "  almost  incredible," 
and  pointed  out  that  he  had  no  right  or  power  to  keep  peace 
between  the  States  as  suggested.  Governor  Hicks,  of  Mary 
land,  was  skeptical,  but  ready  to  take  some  civil  and  military 
measures  to  cooperate.  Governor  Packer,  of  Pennsylvania, 
correctly  characterized  the  information  received  by  Gov 
ernor  Wise  as  "utterly  and  entirely  without  foundation," 
and  reminded  him  sharply  that  Pennsylvania  had  done  and 
would  do  her  duty.  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Governor  of  Ohio, 
replied  that  he  had  heard  nothing  of  any  desperadoes  assem 
bling  in  Ohio  until  he  received  Governor  Wise's  letter.  In 
answer  to  Wise's  threats  that  Virginia  troops  might  have  to 
pursue  rescuers  into  Ohio,  Governor  Chase  gave  to  Governor 
Wise  the  information  that  the  laws  of  the  United  States  pre 
scribed  the  mode  in  which  persons  charged  with  crime  es 
caping  into  Ohio  might  be  demanded  and  surrendered ;  and  he 
added  that  Ohio  under  no  circumstances  would  consent  to  the 
invasion  of  her  territory  by  armed  bodies  from  other  States.46 

Hunter  and  Wise  did  not  cease  their  emergency  prepara 
tions,  after  making  their  military  arrangements.  Through 
the  former,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  was  induced 
to  take  the  most  elaborate  precautions.  A  canny  Boston 
Yankee,  Josiah  Perham,  had  asked  the  railroad  for  reduced 
rates  for  one  or  two  thousand  sight-seers,  to  whom  he  wished 
to  show  Brown  on  the  scaffold,  and  then  the  sights  of  Wash 
ington  at  the  time  of  the  opening  of  Congress.  He  asserted 
that  he  had  moved  two  hundred  thousand  people  in  the  nine 
previous  years  without  accident  and  without  complaint  that 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      525 

"any  of  them  did  not  behave  well.'1  But  under  Hunter's  ad 
vice  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  declined  to  profit  by  this  oppor 
tunity  to  make  money,  on  account  of  the  "peculiar  relation 
of  the  criminals  to  a  portion  of  the  Eastern  community  and 
the  great  liability  to  at  least  an  unpleasant  excitement  on  the 
occasion,"  —  so  Mr.  Perham  was  informed.  All  excursions 
or  movements  of  any  number  of  people  as  a  body  were  for 
bidden.  Local  passenger  traffic  from  the  adjoining  towns  to 
Harper's  Ferry  and  Charlestown  was  practically  suspended 
on  the  day  before  the  execution,  no  tickets  being  sold  save 
to  persons  well  known  to  the  agents.  Every  intending  pas 
senger  was  urged  to  travel  on  another  day,  as  every  one 
insufficiently  provided  with  a  pass  faced  "arrest  and  impris 
onment  on  attempting  to  stop  at  Martinsburg  or  Harper's 
Ferry."  47  As  Mr.  Hunter  avers  that  four  Congressmen  who 
were  desirous  of  seeing  Brown  hanged,  and  were  escorted  by  a 
well-known  citizen  of  Harper's  Ferry,  were  nevertheless  jailed 
on  suspicion  as  soon  as  they  reached  Charlestown,  this  warn 
ing  to  travellers  was  plainly  well  worth  obeying.48  Even  inno- « 
cent  passengers  were  liable  to  arrest  and  removal  from  trains, 
as  in  the  case  of  three  Baltimoreans  arrested  at  Martinsburg 
on  November  29.  From  as  far  west  as  Wheeling,  no  one 
could  go  east  on  December  I  or  2  without  a  certificate  of  good 
character  from  a  station  agent,  and  not  more  than  sixty  cer 
tificates  could  be  issued.  Conductors  were  ordered  to  tele 
graph  in  detail  about  their  trains  to  W.  P.  Smith,  the  Master 
of  Transportation.  That  official  even  asked  aid  in  New  York, 
for  he  excitedly  telegraphed,  as  late  as  November  30,  to  J.  P. 
Jackson,  Vice- President  of  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  Com 
pany,  begging  for  news:49 

"Great  alarm  exists  here  from  expectations  of  large  forces  of 
desperadoes  from  North,  East  and  West,  to  attempt  rescue  of  Vir 
ginia  prisoners.  Will  you  favor  us  by  promptly  despatching  any 
information  you  may  have  respecting  parties  who  may  be  of  this 
character  taking  your  trains  for  the  South,  and  also  advise  us  per 
sonally  if  any  unusual  party  of  unknown  men  start  for  this  direc 
tion." 

In  brief,  there  was  voluntary  enforcement  of  martial  law,  • 
and  the  whole  countryside  behaved  as  if  in  a  state  of  siege. 
When  the  execution  came,  there  was  not  the  slightest  dis- 


526  JOHN  BROWN 

turbance  of  the  peace  of  any  kind,  either  at  Charles  town  or 
on  any  part  of  Governor  Wise's  embattled  frontier. 

Not  unnaturally,  that  Executive  was  severely  criticised 
for  his  military  display  and  its  costliness.  Part  of  the  Vir 
ginia  and  Maryland  press  denounced  it  as  unnecessary,  and 
credited  it  to  Wise's  alleged  desire  to  make  political  capital 
out  of  the  raid.60  But  a  study  of  contemporary  reports  of 
conditions  at  Charlestown,  and  of  the  Virginia  press,  makes 
it  plain  that  Wise  would  have  been  justified  in  calling  out  a 
strong  military  force,  had  he  not  been  himself  so  convinced 
that  hordes  of  desperadoes  were  about  to  descend  upon  his 
1  State.  He  owed  it  to  the  citizens  of  Charlestown  not  merely 
to  safeguard  the  prisoners,  but  also  to  protect  the  town  from 
the  bloodshed  of  even  an  unsuccessful  attempt  at  a  rescue. 
There  was,  moreover,  extraordinary  popular  excitement 
throughout  the  Union,  and  if  this  were  in  itself  not  excuse 
enough,  the  weakness  of  the  South's  "  peculiar  institution " 
would  have  furnished  it.  The  Free  State  men  in  Kansas  had 
not  only  made  slavery  impossible  in  their  Territory,  but  had 
endangered  it  in  Missouri  by  their  raids  into  the  State,  and 
their  helping  hand  to  any  slave  who  came  over  the  border 
in  search  of  freedom.  From  the  Southern  point  of  view,  it 
would  seem  to  have  been  good  policy  to  show  the  power  of 
the  sovereign  State  of  Virginia  to  defend  her  own  when  at 
tacked,  and  to  punish  those  who  violated  her  laws.  Certainly, 
Mr.  Hunter,  in  his  article  in  the  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat 
of  September  5,  1887,  reviewing  the  raid  and  Brown's  trial, 
makes  out  a  strong  case  for  the  force  employed.  The  report 
of  the  Legislature's  special  committee,  headed  by  Alexander 
H.  H.  Stuart,  unreservedly  sustained  Governor  Wise,  in  the 
following  language: 

"The  testimony  before  the  committee  amply  vindicates  the  con 
duct  of  the  Executive  in  assembling  a  strong  military  force  at  the 
scene  of  excitement;  and  the  promptness  and  energy  with  which 
he  discharged  his  duty,  merit,  and  doubtless  will  receive  the  com 
mendation  of  the  Legislature  and  people  of  the  State."51 

It  must  be  admitted,  of  course,  that  Wise  still  had  political 
ambitions,  although  his  term  as  Governor  was  about  expiring: 
for  a  few  months  later,  he  was  willing  to  have  his  name  pre- 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      527 

sented  to  the  National  Democratic  Convention  at  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  provided  the  Virginia  State  delegation  were 
a  unit  for  his  nomination.52  But  in  his  treatment  of  the  mil 
itary  situation,  the  politician  disappears  behind  the  Governor. 
His  bombastic  and  excitable  way  of  dealing  with  it  was  due  to 
his  fears,  and  also  to  his  nature.  His  biographer,  Barton  H. 
Wise,  a  relative,  has  characterized  him  as  ''largely  a  creature 
of  impulse,"  of  a  "remarkably  mercurial "  temperament,  with 
a  "  temper  exceptionally  excitable  and  his  bump  of  combative- 
ness  developed  in  an  extraordinary  degree."  53  That  Hunter 
and  the  Governor  realized  that  the  State  would  profit  largely 
by  the  drill  and  experience  the  troops  obtained  at  Charles- 
town,  Mr.  Hunter  admits  in  these  words: 

"From  facts  disclosed  in  the  trials,  from  the  intercepted  corre 
spondence  of  Brown  and  his  followers,  and  from  other  sources,  a 
new  view  of  the  case  was  opened  to  us  in  respect  to  the  political 
significance  of  this  movement  of  John  Brown;  we  began  to  see  that 
all  it  meant  was  not  on  the  surface.  My  views  were  from  time  to 
time  conveyed  to  Governor  Wise,  and  before  the  trials  both  he  and 
I  became  convinced,  that  this  Brown  raid  was  the  beginning  of  a 
great  conflict  between  the  North  and  the  South  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  and  had  better  be  regarded  accordingly.  This  furnishes 
an  additional  explanation  of  the  reason  Governor  Wise  assembled  / 
so  large  a  military  volunteer  force  at  Charlestown  and  the  neigh-  / 
boring  points.  It  was  not  alone  for  the  protection  of  the  jail  and 
the  repelling  of  parties  who  were  known  to  be  organizing  with  the 
view  of  rescuing  Brown  and  the  prisoners,  but  it  was  for  the  pur 
pose  of  preparing  for  coming  events." 

To  General  Taliaferro,  the  commander-in-chief  at  Charles- 
town,  it  was  apparent  that  the  Governor  had  another  mo 
tive  besides  protecting  the  prisoners,  in  assembling  so  many 
troops,  for  immediately  after  John  Brown's  execution  he  thus 
questioned  the  Governor  by  telegraph:  "Shall  I  send  home 
the  First  Regiment  Virginia  Volunteers?  Which  companies 
beside  do  you  wish  to  retire?  What  are  your  views  with  re 
gard  to  sending  more  troops  here?  Do  you  design  a  school 
of  instruction?  There  is  no  absolute  need  for  half  we  have."  64 
Thus  far  Governor  Wise  may  properly  be  accused  of  having 
allowed  ulterior  motives  to  influence  his  handling  of  the 
Charlestown  situation,  but  no  further.  It  is,  moreover,  certain 
that  his  disposition  of  the  troops  and  the  other  precautions 


528  JOHN  BROWN 

taken  made  a  rescue  practically  impossible,  or  possible  only 
after  severe  loss  of  life.  There  are  to-day  survivors  of  those 
stirring  days  at  Charlestown,  who  believe  that  if  a  determined 
attempt  had  been  made,  by  means  of  a  feint  a  mile  or  two 
from  the  town,  the  rawness  of  the  militia  and  the  generally 
panicky  state  of  the  town  would  have  made  the  storming 
of  the  jail  possible.  But  among  the  hundreds  of  troops  who 
were  steadily  in  camp  throughout  November,  and  those  that 
came  to  reinforce  them,  there  were  some  experienced  officers 
and  trustworthy  men.  As  Le  Barnes  wrote  to  Higginson,  the 
real  leaders  of  those  who  wished  to  rescue  John  Brown  could 
see  no  hope  of  success,  even  were  the  means  needed  at  their 
disposal.  And  as  to  the  cost  to  Virginia  of  the  military  dis 
play,  it  hardly  exceeded  the  amount  appropriated  at  that 
same  time  for  new  arms  and  ammunition  by  the  Legislature 
of  South  Carolina  with  a  view  to  the  existing  state  of  its 
relations  to  the  Union. 

While  the  Virginia  authorities  were  thus  guarding  John 
Brown  in  order  to  prevent  a  rescue,  the  "higher  and  wickeder 
game,"  namely,  the  chief  accessories  before  the  fact  to  his 
raid,  whom  Andrew  Hunter  and  Governor  Wise  were  so 
anxious  to  stalk  until  the  Mason  Committee  was  decided  on, 
were  by  no  means  all  at  ease  in  their  Massachusetts  or  New 
York  preserves.  When  the  raid  turned  out  to  be  not  another 
slave  liberation  like  that  in  Missouri,  but  a  drama  with  the 
whole  nation  as  audience,  there  was  something  akin  to  trepi 
dation  among  the  self-appointed  committee  which  had  made 
John  Brown's  raid  possible.  Its  members  were  plainly  un 
aware  that  to  support  a  forcible  attack  upon  a  system,  how 
ever  iniquitous,  in  a  country  founded  on  the  principle  that 
differences  of  opinion  must  be  settled  by  the  ballot,  carries 
with  it  both  heavy  responsibilities  and  grave  personal  dan 
ger.  Few  of  them  had  believed  Brown's  plans  feasible;  none 
had  apparently  asked  themselves  how  far  they  would  be  com 
promised  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  when  John  Brown  failed.  The 
result  was  disastrous  to  some  of  them,  though  none  of  the 
leaders  went  to  jail  or  were  otherwise  punished  for  conspiring 
with  John  Brown.  The  conduct  of  a  few  illustrates  clearly 
how  good  men  of  high  principles  and  excellent  motives  may 
flinch  gravely  when  they  suddenly  find  their  future  reputa- 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     529 

tions,  and  perhaps  even  their  lives,  at  stake  in  a  grave  and 
unexpected  crisis. 

Of  the  men  who,  as  we  have  already  seen  in  the  previous 
chapters,  knew  most  about  John  Brown's  plans  and  principally 
aided  him,  —  Sanborn,  Howe,  Stearns,  Gerrit  Smith,  Parker 
and  Higginson,  —  the  Boston  and  Worcester  clergymen  alone 
stand  out  as  being  entirely  ready  to  take  the  consequences, 
whatever  they  might  be.  Theodore  Parker  was  in  Europe  on 
a  futile  search  for  health,  when  Harper's  Ferry  was  attacked ; 
but  he  bore  his  testimony  manfully:  "Of  course,  I  was  not 
astonished  to  hear  that  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  free  the 
slaves  in  a  certain  part  of  Virginia.  .  .  .  Such  '  insurrections ' 
will  continue  as  long  as  Slavery  lasts,  and  will  increase,  both 
in  frequency  and  in  power,  just  as  the  people  become  intelli 
gent  and  moral.  .  .  .  It  is  a  good  Anti-Slavery  picture  on  the 
Virginia  shield :  a  man  standing  on  a  tyrant  and  chopping  his 
head  off  with  a  sword;  only  I  would  paint  the  sword-holder 
black  and  the  tyrant  white,  to  show  the  immediate  applica 
tion  of  the  principle."  55  As  for  Mr.  Higginson,  he  stood  his 
ground  in  Worcester,  where  all  the  world  might  find  him.  He 
wisely  reasoned  from  information  sent  him  from  Washing 
ton  as  to  Senator  Mason's  plans,  "  that  no  one  who  leaves  the 
country  will  be  pursued,  and  no  one  who  stands  his  ground 
will  be  molested.  I  think  the  reason  why  Phillips  &  I  have 
not  been  summoned  is  that  it  was  well  understood  that 
we  were  not  going  to  Canada.  Mason  does  not  wish  to  have 
John  Brown  heartily  defended  before  the  committee  &  the 
country  —  nor  does  he  wish  to  cause  an  emeute,  either  in  Mas 
sachusetts  or  Washington.  He  wishes  simply  to  say  that 
he  tried  for  evidence  &  it  was  refused  him.  If  his  witnesses 
go  to  Canada  or  Europe,  he  is  freed  from  all  responsibility."  M 
The  event  wholly  bore  Mr.  Higginson  out,  but  the  others 
were  not  of  his  opinion  at  any  time. 

There  was  an  early  exodus  of  them  to  Canada.  Frederick 
Douglass  left  Rochester  for  the  shelter  of  the  British  flag  as 
early  as  October  19,  or  the  day  after  Brown  was  captured,  and 
was  soon  on  his  way  to  England.57  Mr.  Sanborn  was  only  a 
day  behind,  departing  from  Concord  on  October  20,  to  return, 
however,  by  the  26th.58  From  Portland,  Mr.  Sanborn  thus 
jocularly  notified  Mr.  Higginson  of  his  departure: 


530  JOHN  BROWN 

PORTLAND,  Oct.  2ist,  1859. 

DEAR  FRIEND:  According  to  advice  of  good  friends  and  my  own 
deliberate  judgment  I  am  going  to  try  change  of  air  for  my  old 
complaint.  By  this  means  it  is  thought  that  others  will  benefit  as 
well  as  I ;  whether  my  absence  will  be  long  or  short  will  depend  on 
circumstances.  Yours  of  the  iQth  was  rec'd  yesterday  before  I  left 
home.  Should  you  have  occasion  to  write  me  again  I  have  a  friend 
in  Quebec  named  Frederick  Stanley  to  whom  you  can  write. 
Burn  this. 

Yours  ever.59 

The  reason  for  the  hasty  move  was  John  A.  Andrew's  opin 
ion  that  the  conspirators  might  be  suddenly  and  secretly  ar 
rested  and  hurried  out  of  the  State.  Mr.  Sanborn  believed, 
too,  that  it  was  "very  important  that  the  really  small  extent 
of  our  movement  should  be  concealed,  and  its  reach  and  char 
acter  exaggerated.  .  .  ."  60  After  a  more  careful  study  of  the 
question,  Mr.  Andrew  advised  George  L.  Stearns  and  Dr. 
Howe  that  he  could  find  nothing  for  which  they  could  be  tried 
in  Massachusetts  or  "carried  to  any  other  state."  61  Never 
theless,  Stearns  and  Howe  were  on  the  way  to  Canada  by 
October  25,  remaining  outside  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
United  States  until  after  the  execution  of  the  crusader  they 
had  helped  to  send  into  Virginia.62  Later,  on  December  12, 
Mr.  Andrew  wrote  to  Senator  Fessenden,  of  Maine: 

"I  am  confident  that  there  are  some  half  dozen  men  who  ought 
not  to  testify  anywhere,  and  who  never  will,  with  my  consent  as 
counsel,  or  otherwise,  do  so.  Not  that  they  knew,  or  foreknew  Har 
per's  Ferry;  —  but,  that  their  relations  with  Brown  were  such  & 
their  knowledge  of  his  movements  &  intentions,  as  a  '  practical  abo 
litionist,'  aiding  the  escape  of  slaves  by  force,  —  even  at  the  risk 
of  armed  encounter, — that  they  could  not  without  personal  danger 
say  anything.  Nor  could  they  be  known  as  having  those  relations, 
without  giving  some  color  to  the  charge  that  Republicans  co-oper 
ate  in  such  movements."6 

Mr.  Stearns  "escaped  from  Dr.  Howe"  —  so  his  son  re 
cords  —  on  the  fatal  December  2.  He  was  never  as  worried  as 
Dr.  Howe,  whom  he  found  much  agitated  the  first  time  they 
met  after  the  raid. 

Unfortunately,  Dr.  Howe  let  his  anxieties  control  him.  He 
issued  on  November  14  a  card  dated  in  Boston,  although  he 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      531 

was  still  absent,  in  which  he  made  the  following  inexplicable 
statements: 

"  Rumor  has  mingled  my  name  with  the  events  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
So  long  as  it  rested  on  such  absurdities  as  letters  written  to  me  by  Col. 
Forbes,  or  others,  it  was  too  idle  for  notice.  But  when  complicity  is 
distinctly  charged  by  one  of  the  parties  engaged  [John  E.  Cook],  my 
friends  beseech  me  to  define  my  position ;  and  I  consent  the  less  re 
luctantly,  because  I  divest  myself  of  what,  in  time,  might  be  con 
sidered  an  honor,  and  I  want  no  undeserved  ones.  As  regards  Mr. 
Cook  ...  I  never  saw  him  .  .  .  never  even  heard  of  him  until 
since  the  outbreak  at  Harper's  Ferry.  That  event  was  unforeseen  and 
unexpected  by  me ;  nor  does  all  my  previous  knowledge  of  John  Brown 
enable  me  to  reconcile  it  with  his  characteristic  prudence  and  his 
reluctance  to  shed  blood,  or  excite  servile  insurrection.  It  is  still,  to 
me,  a  mystery,  and  a  marvel.  As  to  the  heroic  man  who  planned 
and  led  that  forlorn  hope,  my  relations  with  him  in  former  times  were 
such  as  no  man  ought  to  be  afraid  or  ashamed  to  avow.  If  ever  my 
testimony  as  to  his  high  qualities  can  be  of  use  to  him  or  his,  it  shall 
be  forthcoming  at  the  fitting  time  and  place.  But  neither  this  nor 
any  other  testimony  shall  be  extorted  for  unrighteous  purposes,  if  I 
can  help  it." 

Dr.  Howe  then  explained  that  there  were  certain  "  deadly 
instruments"  among  the  statutes  of  the  Union  under  which 
"we  of  the  North  may  be  forced  to  uphold  and  defend  the 
barbarous  system  of  Human  Slavery,"  because  a  "dishonest 
Judge  in  the  remotest  South"  could  through  a  marshal  cause 
the  arrest  of  any  citizen  and  have  him  brought  before  the 
court.  He  concluded  as  follows: 

"  I  am  told  by  high  legal  authority  that  Massachusetts  is  so  tram 
melled  by  the  bonds  of  the  Union,  that,  as  matters  now  stand,  she 
cannot,  or  dare  not  protect  her  citizens  from  such  forcible  extradi 
tion;  and  that  each  one  must  protect  himself  as  best  he  may.  Upon 
that  hint  I  shall  act;  preferring  to  forego  anything  rather  than  the 
right  to  free  thought  and  free  speech."  64 

In  view  of  Dr.  Howe's  having  known  of  the  raid  from  Feb 
ruary  26,  1858,  when  Mr.  Sanborn  informed  him  of  all  Brown's 
plans  except  the  precise  location  at  Harper's  Ferry,65  the  state 
ments  above  can  be  defended  only  on  the  theory  that  it  is 
proper  to  misrepresent  when  one  finds  one's  self  in  an  uncom 
fortable  or  dangerous  position.  This  sad  attitude  of  a  man  at 
all  other  times  a  brave  and  high-minded  philanthropist  and 


532  JOHN  BROWN 

a  rarely  useful  servant  of  humanity,  brought  forth  a  vigorous 
reproach  from  Mr.  Higginson.66  In  his  indignation  of  the  mo 
ment  he  notified  Mr.  Sanborn  that  he  regarded  Dr.  Howe's 
card  as  anything  but  honorable.67 

For  three  months  Dr.  Howe  could  not  find  time  to  reply  to 
Mr.  Higginson.  On  February  16  he  attempted  to  justify  his 
course,  writing  as  to  the  card  of  November  14: 

"...  I  was  not  very  decided  in  the  belief  of  its  expediency.  It 
was  done,  however,  in  consequence  of  an  opinion  which  I  held,  and 
hold,  that  everything  which  could  be  honestly  done  to  show  that 
John  Brown  was  not  the  Agent,  or  even  the  ally  of  others,  but  an 
individual  acting  upon  his  own  responsibility,  would  increase  the 
chances  of  escape  for  him  and  his  companions.  I  believed,  and  I  be 
lieve,  that  every  manifestation  at  that  time  of  public  sympathy  for 
him  and  his  acts,  lessened  the  chances  of  his  escape,  whether  by  res 
cue  or  otherwise.  ...  Of  course,  there  were  other  considerations, 
but  this  was  the  leading  one.  .  .  .  You  say  that  it  was  skilfully  writ 
ten;  but  you  seem  to  imply  that  honorable  men,  who  knew  all  the 
facts,  would  disapprove  it.  But,  my  friend,  it  was  simply  written 
and  not  intended  to  carry  a  false  impression.  It  was  submitted  to 
an  honorable  man  who  knew  all  that  I  knew  about  John  Brown's 
movements,  and  a  great  deal  more,  and  he  approved  it,*  before  its 
publication."  68 

As  for  his  last  interview  with  John  Brown,  Dr.  Howe  reiter 
ated  that  "he  [Brown]  did  not  then  reveal  to  me  his  destina 
tion,  or  his  purpose.  We  had  no  conversation  about  his  future 
plans.  His  appearance  at  'Harper's  Ferry'  was  to  me  not 
only  unexpected  but  quite  astonishing.  The  original  plan  as 
I  understood  it  was  quite  different  from  this  one;  &  even  that 
I  supposed  was  abandoned."  Dr.  Howe  averred  that  the  last 
fifty  dollars  he  had  sent  to  Brown  when  he  was  at  the  Kennedy 
Farm,  were  given  to  show  his  sympathy  and  "  without  cogni 
zance  of  his  purpose." 69  When  Dr.  Howe  finally  appeared  be 
fore  the  Mason  Committee,  he  made  every  effort  to  baffle  the 
inquirers.  For  instance,  he  tried  to  make  them  believe  that 
the  last  fifty  dollars  he  gave  went  toward  the  purchase  of 
the  Thompson  farm  for  Brown.  Fortunately  for  him  and  the 
other  conspirators,  the  Mason  Committee  was  not  only  easily 
led  astray,  but,  as  Mr.  Sanborn  has  well  said,  its  questions 

*  This  was  presumably  John  A.  Andrew;  if  this  excellent  man  and  lawyer 
advised  Dr.  Howe's  course,  he  must  also  share  the  responsibility. 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      533 

were  "so  unskilfully  framed  that  they  [the  witnesses]  could, 
without  literal  falsehood,  answer  as  they  did."  70  Mr.  San- 
born  was  of  a  different  mind  from  Mr.  Higginson  as  to 
Dr.  Howe's  card.71  His  reasoning,  however,  only  aroused  Mr. 
Higginson  anew,  and  led  him  to  ask  on  November  17,  1859: 
"Is  there  no  such  thing  as  honor  among  confederates?"72 
Making  all  due  allowances  for  the  heat  of  the  moment  as  ex 
pressed  in  Colonel  Higginson's  letter,  it  does  not  seem  even 
at  this  date  that  his  reasoning  was  far  wrong. 

Mr.  Sanborn  has  lately  set  forth  in  detail  his  own  move 
ments  and  the  reasons  therefor.  By  the  iQth  of  November, 
1859,  he  had  decided  "to  pursue  my  usual  occupation  or  any 
that  I  may  take  up,  whatever  summons  or  other  process  may 
be  issued ;  shall  resist  arrest  by  force,  shall  refuse  to  sue  a  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  —  but,  if  arrested,  shall  consent  to  be  rescued 
only  by  force.  It  is  possible  the  anxiety  of  friends  may  in 
duce  me  to  modify  this  course,  but  I  think  not."73  Early  in 
January,  1860,  he  received  a  summons  from  the  Mason  Com 
mittee.  Like  John  Brown,  Jr.,  he  refused  to  go  to  Washington 
because  there  was  no  assurance  of  his  personal  safety,  —  he 
might  be  seized  in  passing  through  Maryland.  When,  for  this 
reason,  Mr.  Sanborn  offered  to  testify  in  Massachusetts,  Sen 
ator  Mason  wrote  that  he  would  be  personally  responsible 
for  Mr.  Sanborn's  safety.  To  this  the  latter  replied  that  as 
Senator  Sumner  had  been  brutally  assaulted  in  the  Senate, 
he  could  hardly  rely  on  Senator  Mason's  offer  of  protection. 
Says  Mr.  Sanborn: 

"  Upon  the  receipt  of  this  missive,  Mason  reported  me  to  the  Sen 
ate  as  a  contumacious  witness,  and  my  arrest  was  voted,  February 
16, 1860,  as  that  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  James  Redpath  was.  A  few 
of  the  Southern  Senators,  seeing  that  my  attitude  about  State  Rights 
was  quite  similar  to  theirs,  voted  against  my  arrest,  and  began  to 
send  me  their  political  speeches.  Not  choosing  to  be  seized  before  I 
was  quite  ready,  I  retired  to  Canada,  in  the  latter  part  of  February, 
taking  North  Elba  in  my  northward  route,  in  order  to  see  the  Brown 
family,  and  to  make  arrangements  for  two  of  Brown's  daughters, 
Anne  and  Sarah,  to  enter  my  school,  as  they  did,  in  March." 

On  the  night  of  April  3,  1860,  peaceful  Concord  was  aroused 
by  one  of  the  dramatic  incidents  of  its  history.  Five  men, 
headed  by  a  Boston  constable,  Silas  Carleton,  arrested  San- 


534  JOHN  BROWN 

born  in  his  home.  The  outcries  of  his  sister,  his  own  struggles, 
the  ringing  of  the  alarm-bells,  the  rallying  to  his  support  of  his 
neighbors,  saved  him  from  being  carried  off.  His  counsel  was 
quickly  at  his  side  and  hurried  at  once  to  Judge  Rockwood 
Hoar,  a  near-by  neighbor,  who  on  hearing  the  tumult  had 
quietly  begun  to  fill  out  the  "proper  blank  for  the  great  writ 
of  personal  replevin."  It  was  in  the  hands  of  a  deputy  sheriff 
within  ten  minutes.  When  he  demanded  Mr.  Sanborn's  sur 
render  of  Carleton's  men,  they  refused  to  give  him  up,  —  only 
to  have  him  taken  from  them  by  a  hastily  formed  but  most 
zealous  posse  comitatus.  The  Supreme  Court  quickly  decided 
the  next  day  that  his  arrest  by  the  emissaries  of  the  Senate 
was  without  warrant  of  law,  and  Mr.  Sanborn  returned  to 
Concord  a  hero  to  his  townspeople.  He  protested  to  the 
Senate  and  began  suit  against  Carleton  and  his  men,  and 
thereafter  he  remained  in  peace. 

Mr.  Stearns  appeared  before  the  Mason  Committee  on  Feb 
ruary  24,  1860,  and  his  testimony  is  as  interesting  as  it  is  his 
torically  valuable.  He,  too,  denied  any  pre-knowledge  of  the 
raid  except  as  a  plan  to  "relieve  slaves "  by  force.  But  he  was 
obviously  unafraid.  When  Senator  Mason  asked,  the  three- 
hour  examination  being  over,  and  all  the  members  of  the  com 
mittee  but  himself  having  left  the  room :  "Don't  your  conscience 
trouble  you  for  sending  those  rifles  to  Kansas  to  shoot  our 
innocent  people?"  Mr.  Stearns  replied:  "Self-defence.  You 
began  the  game.  You  sent  Buford  and  his  company  with  arms 
before  we  sent  any  from  Massachusetts."75  Senator  Mason 
later  remarked  to  Mr.  Stearns:  "  I  think  when  you  go  to  that 
lower  place, the  Old  Fellow  will  question  you  rather  hard  about 
this  matter  and  you  will  have  to  take  it."  "Before  that 
time  comes,"  retorted  Mr.  Stearns  wittily,  "I  think  he  will 
have  about  two  hundred  years  of  Slavery  to  investigate,  and 
before  he  gets  through  that,  will  say,  we  have  had  enough 
of  this  business  —  better  let  the  rest  go."  76  Senator  Mason 
laughed  and  left  the  room.  Asked,  in  the  course  of  the  formal 
examination,  if  he  disapproved  of  the  raid  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
Mr.  Stearns  responded:  "I  should  have  disapproved  of  it  if  I 
had  known  of  it;  but  I  have  since  changed  my  opinion;  I  be 
lieve  John  Brown  to  be  the  representative  man  of  this  century, 
as  Washington  was  of  the  last  —  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair,  and 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     535 

the  capacity  shown  by  the  Italians  for  self-government,  the 
great  events  of  this  age.  One  will  free  Europe  and  the  other 
America."  "  Mr.  Stearns  returned  to  Boston  to  render  valu 
able  service  to  his  State  in  the  Civil  War,  and  retained,  as 
long  as  he  lived,  the  respect  and  regard  of  the  community  in 
which  he  dwelt. 

Upon  Gerrit  Smith  the  news  of  the  raid  had  as  deplorable 
an  effect  as  upon  Dr.  Howe.  His  biographer,  O.  B.  Frothing- 
ham,  states  that  a  high  medical  authority  had  declared  Gerrit 
Smith  to  have  reached  the  stage  of  insanity  known  as  "exalta 
tion  of  mind"  early  in  1859; 78  that  in  the  fall  of  1859  he  ate 
and  slept  little  and  was  exhausted  without  knowing  it.  When 
the  Harper's  Ferry  attack  became  public,  it  had  an  astounding 
influence  upon  Mr.  Smith.  The  outcries  against  him  as  an 
accessory,  in  the  pro-slavery  press  and  by  his  political  enemies, 
the  rumor  that  the  Virginia  authorities  were  about  to  requi 
sition  the  Governor  of  New  York  for  his  extradition,  and 
the  bloody  and  futile  character  of  the  raid  itself,  all  reduced 
him  to  a  state  of  terror.  He  saw  crumbling  before  him  the 
high  social  and  political  position  he  had  won,  —  Mr.  Smith 
had  been  candidate  for  the  governorship  of  New  York  in  1858. 
A  reporter  of  the  New  York  Herald  found  him,  on  October  30, 
nervously  agitated,  "as  though  some  great  fear  were  constantly 
before  his  imagination,"  and  repeating  again  and  again  that 
he  was  going  to  be  indicted.  Edwin  Morton,  Mr.  Sanborn's 
classmate,  who  had  been  cognizant  of  the  Brown  plot  as  a 
member  of  Gerrit  Smith's  household,  promptly  fled  to  Eng 
land,79  and  Colonel  Charles  D.  Miller,  Mr.  Smith's  son-in-law, 
was  sent  to  Ohio  and  to  Boston  to  obtain  or  destroy  all  of  Mr. 
Smith's  letters  to  the  confederates,  lest  they  be  used  against 
him.80  "After  struggling  for  several  days,"  wrote  Mr.  Froth- 
ingham,  "he  went  down  under  a  troop  of  hallucinations."  On 
November  7  he  was  removed  to  the  Utica  Asylum  for  the  In 
sane,  whose  superintendent,  Dr.  Gray,  is  said  to  have  declared 
that  a  delay  of  even  forty-eight  hours  would  have  been  fatal, 
so  great  was  the  "physical  prostration  of  the  patient." 

If  this  were  the  whole  story,  it  would  be  easy  to  pass  over 
Mr.  Smith's  case  with  an  expression  of  unbounded  sympathy 
and  a  regret  that  he,  too,  had  failed  properly  to  weigh  the  con 
sequences  of  committing  himself  to  John  Brown's  schemes. 


536  JOHN  BROWN 

Unfortunately,  after  his  return  from  his  brief  stay  in  the 
asylum  (on  December  29),  he  concealed  or  denied  the  extent 
of  his  knowledge  and  complicity  in  the  raid.  Mr.  Frothing- 
ham  has  put  the  case  as  charitably  as  possible: 

"On  emerging  from  the  mental  obscuration  at  Utica,  the  whole 
scheme  or  tissue  of  schemes  had  vanished  and  become  visionary.  .  .  . 
It  was  a  dream,  a  mass  of  recollections  tumultuous  and  indistinct. 
Then  cool  reflection  came  in.  The  practical  objections  to  the  enter 
prise,  which  had  flitted  across  his  mind  before,  settled  down  heavily 
upon  it.  The  ill-judged  nature  of  the  plan  in  its  details  and  in  its 
general  scope  forced  itself  upon  his  consideration,  and  made  him  wish 
he  had  never  been  privy  to  it.  The  wish  was  father  to  a  thought,  the 
thought  to  a  purpose.  His  old  horror  of  blood,  his  old  disbelief  in 
violence  as  a  means  of  redressing  wrong,  resumed  its  sway  over  his 
feelings.  The  man  of  business  repelled  the  association  with  the 
visionary  and  tried  to  persuade  himself  that  he  had  taken  no  part 
in  operations  that  were  so  easily  disconcerted.  He  set  himself  to 
the  task  of  making  the  shadowy  recollections  more  shadowy  still, 
and  reducing  his  terms  of  alliance  with  the  audacious  conspirator  to 
sentiments  of  personal  sympathy  and  admiration."1 

This  led  him  to  deny,  even  as  late  as  1867,  that  he  gave 
money  to  John  Brown  with  the  purpose  of  aiding  his  insurrec 
tion.82  Mr.  Frothingham  was  unable  to  defend  him  or  to  excul 
pate  him  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  and  Mr.  Sanborn,  in  his 
recently  published  account  of  this  episode,  --  long  withheld 
out  of  consideration  for  the  family,  —  makes  it  as  clear  as  have 
the  earlier  chapters  of  this  narrative,  that  Gerrit  Smith  was, 
like  Sanborn,  Howe  and  the  others,  cognizant  of  every  detail 
of  the  raid  save  the  place  of  its  beginning.  Indeed,  in  a  letter 
to  the  chairman  of  the  Jerry  Rescue  Committee,  dated  August 
27,  1859,  Mr.  Smith  had  foreshadowed  the  raid  by  writing: 
"  For  insurrection  then  we  may  look  any  year,  any  month,  any 
day.  A  terrible  remedy  for  a  terrible  wrong !  But  come  it  must 
unless  anticipated  by  repentance  and  the  putting  away  of  the 
terrible  wrong."  83 

However  great  the  perturbation  of  his  Northern  associ 
ates,  no  prisoner  in  Virginia's  history  up  to  that  time  had 
displayed  greater  serenity  of  spirit  than  did  John  Brown 
himself  behind  his  cell  doors  in  Charlestown.  It  was  a  reve 
lation  to  the  Virginians.  Here  was  a  man  sore  in  body,  who 
ought  to  be  sore  in  spirit,  two  of  whose  sons  had  been  killed 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      537 

at  his  side,  whose  own  death  was  not  far  away.  More  than 
that,  the  object  of  a  lifetime  had  wholly  miscarried.  Propriety 
and  precedent  prescribed  a  cast-down  prisoner,  chagrined, 
humiliated,  despairing.  Instead,  the  miscreant  in  the  custody 
of  Sheriff  Campbell  proved  a  man  of  unquenchable  spirit, 
of  most  equable  temperament,  and  of  unswerving  courage, 
who  apparently  believed  himself  the  conqueror,  even  with  the 
light  chains  upon  his  ankles  which  he  wore  for  the  first  few 
days.  He  wrote  but  the  truth  as  to  his  own  spirit  and  com 
posure  in  his  first  letter  from  the  jail  to  his  family  at  North 
Elba: 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  Co,  VA. 
3  ist  Oct. 

MY  DEAR  WIFE,  &  CHILDREN  EVERY  ONE 

I  suppose  you  have  learned  before  this  by  the  newspapers  that 
Two  weeks  ago  today  we  were  fighting  for  our  lives  at  Harpers 
ferry:  that  during  the  fight  Watson  was  mortally  wounded;  Oliver 
killed,  Wm  Thompson  killed,  &  Dauphin  slightly  wounded.  That 
on  the  following  day  I  was  taken  prisoner  immediately  after  which 
I  received  several  Sabre-cuts  in  my  head;  &  Bayonet  stabs  in 
my  body.  As  nearly  as  I  can  learn  Watson  died  of  his  wound  on 
Wednesday  the  2d  or  on  Thursday  the  3d  day  after  I  was  taken. 

Dauphin  was  killed  when  I  was  taken;  &  Anderson  I  suppose 
also.  I  have  since  been  tried,  &  found  guilty  of  Treason,  etc;  and  of 
murder  in  the  first  degree.  I  have  not  yet  received  my  sentence.  No 
others  of  the  company  with  whom  you  were  acquainted  were,  so 
far  as  /  can  learn,  either  killed  or  taken.  Under  all  these  terrible 
calamities;  I  feel  quite  cheerful  in  the  assurance  that  God  reigns;  & 
will  overrule  all  for  his  glory;  &  the  best  possible  good.  I  feel  no 
consciousness  of  guilt  in  the  matter:  nor  even  mortifycation  on 
account  of  my  imprisonment;  &  irons;  &  I  feel  perfectly  sure  that 
very  soon  no  member  of  my  family  will  feel  any  possible  disposition 
to  " blush  on  my  account."  Already  dear  friends  at  a  distance  with 
kindest  sympathy  are  cheering  me  with  the  assurance  that  posterity 
at  least  will  do  me  justice.  I  shall  commend  you  all  together,  with 
my  beloved;  but  bereaved  daughters  in  law,  to  their  sympathies 
which  I  do  not  doubt  will  reach  you. 

I  also  commend  you  all  to  Him  "whose  mercy  endureth  forever:" 
to  the  God  of  ray  fathers  "whose  I  am;  &  whom  I  serve."  "He  will 
never  leave  you  nor  forsake  you,"  unless  you  forsake  Him.  Finally 
my  dearly  beloved  be  of  good  comfort.  Be  sure  to  remember  &  to 
follow  my  advice  &  my  example  too;  so  far  as  it  has  been  consistent 
with  the  holy  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  in  which  I  remain  a  most  firm, 
&  humble  believer.  Never  forget  the  poor  nor  think  anything  you 
bestow  on  them  to  be  lost,  to  you  even  though  they  may  be  as  black 
as  Ebedmelch  the  Ethiopean  eunuch  who  cared  for  Jeremiah  in  the 


538  JOHN  BROWN 

pit  of  the  dungeon;  or  as  black  as  the  one  to  whom  Phillip  preached 
Christ.  Be  sure  to  entertain  strangers,  for  thereby  some  have  — 
"  Remember  them  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them."  I  am  in 
charge  of  a  jailor  like  the  one  who  took  charge  of  " Paul  &  Silas;"  & 
you  may  rest  assured  that  both  kind  hearts  &  kind  faces  are  more  or 
less  about  me;  whilst  thousands  are  thirsting  for  my  blood.  "These 
light  afflictions  which  are  but  for  a  moment  shall  work  out  for  us  a 
far  more  exceeding  &  eternal  weight  of  Glory."  I  hope  to  be  able  to 
write  to  you  again.  My  wounds  are  doing  well.  Copy  this,  &  send 
it  to  your  sorrow  stricken  brothers,  Ruth;  to  comfort  them.  Write 
me  a  few  words  in  regard  to  the  welfare  of  all.  God  Allmighty  bless 
you  all:  &  "make  you  joyful  in  the  midst  of  all  your  tribulations." 
Write  to  John  Brown  Charlestown  Jefferson  Co,  Va,  care  of  Capt 
John  Avis. 

Your  Affectionate  Husband,  &  Father, 

JOHN  BROWN 

P  S  Yesterday  Nov  2d  I  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged  on  Decem  2d 
next.  Do  not  grieve  on  my  account.  I  am  still  quite  cheerful.  God 
bless  you  all. 

Yours  ever 

J  BROWN  84 

In  their  generous  permission  to  John  Brown  to  write  freely 
to  all  whom  he  wished  to  address,  his  captors  were  unwittingly 
allowing  him  to  use  a  —  for  them — far  more  dangerous  weapon 
than  the  Sharp's  rifle  they  had  taken  from  him  at  Harper's 
Ferry.  As  a  wielder  of  arms,  John  Brown  inspires  no  enthu 
siasm;  not  even  the  flaming  sword  of  Gideon  in  his  hands 
lifts  him  above  the  ordinary  run  of  those  who  battled  in  their 
day  for  a  great  cause.  For  all  his  years  of  dreaming  that  he 
might  become  another  Schamyl,  or  Toussaint  L'Ouverture, 
or  the  Mountain  Marion  of  a  new  war  of  liberation,  he  was 
anything  but  a  general.  In  his  knapsack  was  no  field-marshal's 
baton;  where  he  thought  there  might  be  one,  lay  instead  an 
humble  pen  to  bring  him  glory.  For  when  he  was  stripped 
of  his  liberty,  of  the  arms  in  which  he  exulted,  the  great  power 
of  the  spirit  within  was  revealed  to  him.  The  letters  which 
now  daily  went  forth  to  friends  and  relatives,  and  speedily 
found  their  way  into  print,  found  their  way  also  to  the  hearts 
of  all  who  sympathized  with  him,  and  of  many  who  abhorred 
his  methods,  or  who  had  heretofore  steeled  themselves  against 
him.  Some  idea  of  their  power  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact  that  Sheriff  Campbell  was  compelled  many  times  to  wipe 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED       539 

the  tears  from  his  eyes  when,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  he  read 
over  his  captive's  epistles.85  The  innate  nobility  of  the  man, 
his  essential  unselfishness  and  his  readiness  for  the  supreme 
sacrifice,  all  heightened  the  impending  tragedy,  and  brought 
to  many  the  conviction  that,  misguided  as  he  was,  here  was 
another  martyr  whose  blood  was  to  be  the  seed,  not  of  his 
church,  but  of  his  creed.  .Some  of  these  moving  products  of 
his  pen  may  well  find  a  place  here: 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  COUNTY,  VA.,  Nov.  i,  1859. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  E.  B.  OF  R.  I.:  Your  most  cheering  letter  of  the 
27th  of  Oct.  is  received,  and  may  the  Lord  reward  you  a  thousand 
fold  for  the  kind  feeling  you  express  toward  me ;  but  more  especially 
for  your  fidelity  to  the  "poor  that  cry,  and  those  that  have  no 
help."  For  this  I  am  a  prisoner  in  bonds.  It  is  solely  my  own  fault, 
in  a  military  point  of  view,  that  we  met  with  our  disaster  —  I  mean 
that  I  mingled  with  our  prisoners  and  so  far  sympathized  with  them 
and  their  families  that  I  neglected  my  duty  in  other  respects.  But 
God's  will,  not  mine,  be  done. 

You  know  that  Christ  once  armed  Peter.  So  also  in  my  case,  I 
think  he  put  a  sword  into  my  hand,  and  there  continued  it,  so  long 
as  he  saw  best,  and  then  kindly  took  it  from  me.  I  mean  when  I 
first  went  to  Kansas.  I  wish  you  could  know  with  what  cheerfulness 
I  am  now  wielding  the  "Sword  of  the  Spirit "  on  the  right  hand  and 
on  the  left.  I  bless  God  that  it  proves  "mighty  to  the  pulling  down 
of  strongholds."  I  always  loved  my  Quaker  friends,  and  I  com 
mend  to  their  kind  regard  my  poor,  bereaved  widowed  wife,  and 
my  daughters  and  daughters-in-law,  whose  husbands  fell  at  my  side. 
One  is  a  mother  and  the  other  likely  to  become  so  soon.  They,  as 
well  as  my  own  sorrow-stricken  daughters],  are  left  very  poor,  and 
have  much  greater  need  of  sympathy  than  I,  who,  through  Infinite 
Grace  and  the  kindness  of  strangers,  am  "joyful  in  all  my  tribu 
lations." 

Dear  sister,  write  them  at  North  Elba,  Essex  Co.,  N.  Y.,  to  com 
fort  their  sad  hearts.  Direct  to  Mary  A.  Brown,  wife  of  John  Brown. 
There  is  also  another  —  a  widow,  wife  of  Thompson,  who  fell  with 
my  poor  boys  in  the  affair  at  Harper's  Ferry,  at  the  same  place. 

I  do  not  feel  conscious  of  guilt  in  taking  up  arms ;  and  had  it  been 
in  behalf  of  the  rich  and  powerful,  the  intelligent,  the  great  —  as 
men  count  greatness  —  of  those  who  form  enactments  to  suit  them 
selves  and  corrupt  others,  or  some  of  their  friends,  that  I  interfered, 
suffered,  sacrificed,  and  fell,  it  would  have  been  doing  very  well.  But 
enough  of  this. 

These  light  afflictions  which  endure  for  a  moment,  shall  work  out 
for  me  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory.  I  would  be 
very  grateful  for  another  letter  from  you.  My  wounds  are  healing. 


540  JOHN  BROWN 

Farewell.   God  will  surely  attend  to  his  own  cause  in  the  best  pos 
sible  way  and  time,  and  he  will  not  forget  the  work  of  his  own  hands. 

Your  friend, 

JOHN  BROWN.86 

To  his  wife  he  wrote  thus  on  November  10: 

CHARLESTOWN  JEFFERSON  Co.  VA.  loth  Nov.  1859. 
MY  DEAR  DEVOTED  WIFE 

I  have  just  learned  from  Mr.  Hoyt  of  Boston  that  he  saw  you 
with  dear  kind  friends  in  Philadelphia  on  your  return  trip  you  had 
so  far  made  in  the  expectation  of  again  seeing  me  in  this  world 
of  "sin  &  sorrow."  I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  had  a  great  desire  to 
see  you  again:  but  that  many  strong  objections  exist  in  my  mind 
against  it.  I  have  before  alluded  to  them  in  what  I  have  said  in  my 
other  letters  (which  I  hope  you  will  soon  get)  &  will  not  now  repeat 
them ;  as  it  is  exceedingly  laborious  for  me  to  write  at  all.  I  am  under 
renewed  obligation  to  you  my  ever  faithful  &  beloved  wife,  for  heed 
ing  what  may  be  my  last  but  earnest  request.  I  have  before  given 
you  a  very  brief  statement  of  the  fall  of  our  dear  sons;  &  other 
friends.  Full  particulars  relating  to  our  disaster;  I  cannot  now  give: 
&  may  never  give  probably.  I  am  greatly  comforted  by  learning  of 
the  kindness  already  shown  you;  &  allow  me  humbly  to  repeat  the 
language  of  a  far  greater  man  &  better  sinner  than  I.  "I  have  been 
young;  &  now  am  old:  yet  have  I  not  seen  the  righteous  forsaken 
nor  his  seed  begging  bread."  I  will  here  say  that  the  sacrifizes  you; 
&  I,  have  been  called  to  make  in  behalf  of  the  cause  we  love  the  cause 
of  God;  &  of  humanity:  do  not  seem  to  me  as  at  all  too  great.  I  have 
been  whiped  as  the  saying  is;  but  am  sure  I  can  recover  all  the  lost 
capital  occasioned  by  that  disaster;  by  only  hanging  a  few  moments 
by  the  neck;  &  I  feel  quite  determined  to  make  the  utmost  possible 
out  of  a  defeat.  I  am  dayly  &  hourly  striving  to  gather  up  what 
little  I  may  from  the  wreck.  I  mean  to  write  you  as  much  &  as  often 
as  I  have  Strength  (or  may  be  permitted  to  write.)  "Be  of  good 
cheer:"  in  the  world  we  must  have  tribulation:  but  the  cords  that 
have  bound  you  as  well  as  I;  to  earth:  have  been  many  of  them 
severed  already.  Let  us  with  sincere  gratitude  receive  all  that  "our 
Father  in  Heaven"  may  send  us;  for  "he  doeth  all  things  well." 
You  must  kiss  our  dear  children  and  grandchildren  for  me.  May 
the  "God  of  my  fathers"  be  the  God,  &  father  of  all  —  "To  him 
be  everlasting  praise."  "Although  the  fig  tree  shall  not  blossom: 
neither  shall  fruit  be  in  the  vines :  the  labour  of  the  olive  shall  fail,  and 
the  fields  shall  yield  no  meat:  the  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold, 
and  there  shall  be  no  herd  in  the  stalls:  yet  /  will  rejoice  in  the  Lord, 
I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  my  salvation."  I  want  dear  Ruth;  or  Anne; 
to  send  copies  (when  they  can)  to  their  deeply  afflicted  brothers, 
of  all  I  write.  I  cannot  muster  strength  to  write  them  all.  If  after 
Virginia  has  applied  the  finishing  stroke  to  the  picture  already  made 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      541 

of  me  (in  order  to  "establish  Justice")  you  can  afford  to  meet  the 
expence  &  trouble  of  coming  on  here  to  gather  up  the  bones  of  our 
beloved  sons,  &  of  your  husband;  and  the  people  here  will  suffer 
you  to  do  so;  I  should  be  entirely  willing.  I  have  just  received  a 
most  welcome  letter  from  a  dear  old  friend  of  my  youth;  Rev.  H. 
L.  Vail  of  Litchfield  Connecticut.  Will  you  get  some  kind  friend  to 
copy  this  letter  to  you  &  send  him  very  plain  as  all  the  acknowledge 
ment  I  have  now  strength  to  make  him ;  &  the  other  kind  friends  he 
mentions.  I  cannot  write  my  friends  as  I  would  do ;  if  I  had  strength. 
Will  you  answer  to  Jeremiah  in  the  same  way  for  the  present  a  letter 
I  have  received  from  him?  WTrite  me  wont  you?  God  bless  you  all 
Your  affectionate  Husband 

JOHN  BROWN." 

He  had  previously  adjured  his  wife  and  children  to  remem 
ber,  all, 

''that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  suffered  a  most  excruciating  death  on  the 
cross  as  a  fellon;  under  the  most  agravating  circumstances.  Think 
also  of  the  prophets,  &  Apostles,  &  Christians  of  former  days;  who 
went  through  greater  tribulations  than  you  &  I;  &  be  reconciled. 
May  God  Allmighty  'comfort  all  your  hearts  and  soon  wipe  away  all 
tears  from  your  eyes.'  To  him  be  endless  praise.  Think  too  of  the 
crushed  Millions  who  'have  no  comforters.'  /  charge  you  all  never  (in 
your  trials)  to  forget  the  griefs  of  '  the  poor  that  cry ;  &  of  those  that 
have  none  to  help  them. ' ' 

On  the  1 6th  of  November  he  thus  expressed  himself  as  to 
the  education  of  his  daughters: 

"  Now  let  me  say  a  word  about  the  effort  to  educate  our  daughters. 
I  am  no  longer  able  to  provide  means  to  help  towards  that  object, 
and  it  therefore  becomes  me  not  to  dictate  in  the  matter.  I  shall 
gratefully  submit  the  direction  of  the  whole  thing  to  those  whose 
generosity  may  lead  them  to  undertake  in  their  behalf,  while  I  give 
anew  a  little  expression  of  my  own  choice  respecting  it.  You,  my 
wife,  perfectly  well  know  that  I  have  always  expressed  a  decided 
preference  for  a  very  plain  but  perfectly  practical  education  for  both 
sons  and  daughters.  I  do  not  mean  an  education  so  very  miserable 
as  that  you  and  /  received  in  early  life;  nor  as  some  of  our  children 
enjoyed.  When  I  say  plain  but  practical,  I  mean  enough  of  the 
learning  of  the  schools  to  enable  them  to  transact  the  common 
business  of  life,  comfortably  and  respectably,  together  with  that 
thorough  training  to  good  business  habits  which  best  prepares  both 
men  and  women  to  be  useful  though  poor,  and  to  meet  the  stern 
Realities  of  life  with  a  good  grace.  You  well  know  that  I  always 
claimed  that  the  music  of  the  broom,  washtub,  needle,  spindle,  loom, 
axe,  scythe,  hoe,  flail,  etc.,  should  first  be  learned,  at  all  events,  and 


542  JOHN  BROWN 

that  of  the  piano,  etc.,  afterwards.  I  put  them  in  that  order  as  most 
conducive  to  health  of  body  and  mind;  and  for  the  obvious  reason, 
that  after  a  life  of  some  experience  and  of  much  observation,  I  have 
found  ten  women  as  well  as  ten  men  who  have  made  their  mark  in 
life  Right,  whose  early  training  was  of  that  plain,  practical  kind,  to 
one  who  had  a  more  popular  and  fashionable  early  training.  But 
enough  of  that." 

To  this  he  added : 

"Now,  in  regard  to  your  coming  here;  If  you  feel  sure  that  you 
can  endure  the  trials  and  the  shock,  which  will  be  unavoidable  (if 
you  come),  I  should  be  most  glad  to  see  you  once  more;  but  when 
I  think  of  your  being  insulted  on  the  road,  and  perhaps  while  here, 
and  of  only  seeing  your  wretchedness  made  complete,  I  shrink  from 
it.  Your  composure  and  fortitude  of  mind  may  be  quite  equal  to  it 
all ;  but  I  am  in  dreadful  doubt  of  it.  //  you  do  come,  defer  your 
journey  till  about  the  2yth  or  28th  of  this  month.  The  scenes  which 
you  will  have  to  pass  through  on  coming  here  will  be  anything  but 
those  you  now  pass,  with  tender,  kind-hearted  friends,  and  kind 
faces  to  meet  you  everywhere.  Do  consider  the  matter  well  before 
you  make  the  plunge.  I  think  I  had  better  say  no  more  on  this  most 
painful  subject.  My  health  improves  a  little;  my  mind  is  very  tran 
quil,  I  may  say  joyous,  and  I  continue  to  receive  every  kind  atten 
tion  that  I  have  any  possible  need  of." 89 

To  a  sympathizer  in  West  Newton,  Massachusetts,  Brown 
wrote  as  follows: 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  Co,  15^  Nov.  1859. 
GEORGE  ADAMS  ESQR. 
MY  DEAR  SIR 

Your  most  kind  communication  of  the  5th  inst  was  received  by 
me  in  due  time.  You  request  a  few  lines  from  me:  which  I  cannot 
deny  you:  though  much  at  a  loss  what  to  write.  Your  kind  mention 
of  some  things  in  my  conduct  here  which  you  approve;  is  very 
comforting  indeed  to  my  mind:  yet  I  am  conscious  that  you  do  me 
more  than  justice.  I  do  certainly  feel  that  through  divine  grace  / 
have  endeavoured  to  be  "  faithful  in  a  very  few  things ;  "  mingling  with 
even  those  much  of  imperfection.  I  am  certainly  unworthy  even 
to  "suffer  affliction  with  the  people  of  God;"  yet,  in  Infinite  grace 
he  has  thus  honored  me.  May  the  same  grace  enable  me  to  serve 
him  in  unew  obedience'1  through  my  little  remainder  of  this  life; 
and  to  rejoice  in  him  forever.  I  cannot  feel  that  God  will  suffer 
even  the  poorest  service  we  may  any  of  us  render  him  or  his  cause 
to  be  lost;  or  in  vain.  I  do  feel  "dear  Brother;  "  that  I  am  won 
derfully  "strengthened  from  on  high."  May  I  use  that  strength  in 
"showing  his  strength  unto  this  generation,"  and  his  power  to  every 
one  that  is  to  come.  I  am  most  grateful  for  your  assurance  that 


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BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      543 

my  poor  shattered  heart-broken  "  family  will  not  be  forgotten. "  I 
have  long  tried  to  commend  them  to  "the  God  of  my  Fathers." 
I  have  many  opportunities  f or  faithful  plain  dealing  ;  with  the  more 
powerful,  influential,  and  inteligent  class;  in  this  region:  which  I 
trust  are  not  entirely  misimproved.  I  humbly  trust  that  I  firmly 
believe  that  "God  reigns;"  and  I  think  I  can  truly  say  "Let  the 
Earth  rejoice." 

May  God  take  care  of  his  own  cause;  and  of  his  own  great  name: 
as  well  as  of  them  who  love  their  neighbours. 
Farewell 

Your[s]  in  truth 

JOHN  BROWNM 

In  a  letter  to  a  kinsman,  Luther  Humphrey,  dated  Novem 
ber  19,  occur  these  passages: 

"Your  kind  letter  of  the  I2th  inst.  is  now  before  me.  So  far  as 
my  knowledge  goes  as  to  our  mutual  kindred ;  I  suppose  /  am  the 
first  since  the  landing  of  Peter  Brown  from  the  Mayflower  that  has 
either  been  sentenced  to  imprisonment;  or  to  the  Gallows.  But  my 
dear  old  friend ;  let  not  that  fact  alone  grieve  you.  You  cannot  have 
forgotten  how;  &  where  our  Grand  Father  Capt  (John  Brown:)  fell 
in  1776;  &  that  he  too;  might  have  perished  on  the  Scaffold  had  cir 
cumstances  been  but  very  little  different.  The  fact  that  a  man  dies 
under  the  hand  of  an  executioner  (or  otherwise)  has  but  little  to  do 
with  his  true  character;  as  I  suppose:  John  Rogers  perished  at  the 
stake  a  great  &  good  man  as  I  suppose :  but  his  being  so,  does  not 
prove  that  any  other  man  who  has  died  in  the  same  way  was  good : 
or  otherwise.  Whether  I  have  any  reason  to  '  be  of  good  cheer '  (or 
not)  in  view  of  my  end;  I  can  assure  you  that  I  feel  so;  &  that  I  am 
totally  blinded  if  I  do  not  realy  experience  that  strengthening;  &  con 
solation  you  so  faithfully  implore  in  my  behalf.  God  of  our  Fathers 
reward  your  fidelity.  I  neither  feel  mortified,  degraded,  nor  in  the 
least  ashamed  of  my  imprisonment,  my  chain,  or  my  near  prospect 
of  death  by  hanging.  I  feel  assured  '  that  not  one  hair  shall  fall  from 
my  head  without  my  heavenly  Father.'  I  also  feel  that  I  have  long 
been  endeavoring  to  hold  exactly  'such  a  fast  as  God  has  chosen.' 
See  the  passage  in  Isaiah  which  you  have  quoted.  No  part  of  my 
life  has  been  more  hapily  spent;  than  that  I  have  spent  here;  &  I 
humbly  trust  that  no  part  has  been  spent  to  better  purpose.  I  would 
not  say  this  boastingly,  but  'thanks  be  unto  God  who  giveth  us  the 
victory;  through  Infinite  grace.'" 

And,  finally,  to  his  staunch  friend,  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson,  he  wrote  on  November  22 : 

DEAR  SIR 

I  write  you  a  few  lines  to  express  to  you  my  deep  feeling  of  grati 
tude  for  your  journey  to  visit  &  comfort  my  family  as  well  as  myself 


544  JOHN  BROWN 

in  different  ways  &  at  different  times;  since  my  imprisonment  here. 
Truly  you  have  proved  yourself  to  be  "a  friend  in  need;"  &  I  feel 
my  many  obligations  for  all  your  kind  attentions,  none  the  less  ;  for 
my  wishing  my  Wife  not  to  come  on  when  she  first  set  out.  I  would 
it  were  in  my  power  to  make  to  all  my  kind  friends;  some  other 
acknowledgements  than  a  mere  tender  of  our  &  my  thanks.  I  can 
assure  all:  Mrs.  Stearns,  my  young  friend  Hoyt;  &  many  others  I 
have  been  unable  to  write  to  as  yet;  that  I  certainly  do  not  forget; 
their  love,  &  kindness.  God  Allmighty  bless;  &  save  them  all;  & 
grant  them  to  see;  a  fulfilment  of  all  their  reasonable  desires.  .  .  . 
I  am  getting  much  better  of  my  wounds;  but  am  yet  rather  lame. 
Am  very  cheerful  6*  trust  I  may  continue  so  "to  the  end." 
My  love  to  all  Yours  for  God  & 

dear  friends.  the  right ; 

JOHN  BROWN  M 

As  he  lay  in  jail  at  Charlestown,  so  vividly  did  the  press 
portray  John  Brown  in  his  prison  background  that  those  in 
the  North  who  were  moved  by  his  speeches  in  court  and 
his  letters  could  fairly  hear  the  clanking  of  his  chains,  could 
behold  him  on  his  bed  of  suffering,  and  later  could  see  him 
'  — --toiling  with  his  pen.  The  reporting  was  detailed  and  faith 
ful.  From  it  the  public  learned  that  in  Captain  John  Avis  he 
had  a  kind  and  considerate  jailer;  that  by  the  2d  of  Novem 
ber  all  his  wounds  were  healed,  save  one  cut  on  the  back  of 
his  head;93  that  he  welcomed  and  greeted  his  visitors  cor 
dially,  even  Captain  Sinn  and  his  militiamen  from  Frederick, 
who  were  permitted  to  enter  the  jail  at  the  end  of  October 
and  stare  at  the  prisoners  as  if  they  were  caged  animals.  They 
were  amazed  at  John  Brown's  composure  and  contentment 
as  he  told  them  of  his  admiration  for  the  picked  company  of 
Virginia  riflemen  he  had  been  thrown  with  in  the  War  of  1812, 
and  expressed  his  regret  that  circumstances  prevented  his 
seeing  Captain  Sinn's  men  on  parade.94  Only  one  visitor  did 
John  Brown  render  really  uncomfortable.  He  was  a  Metho 
dist  clergyman,  Norval  Wilson,  who,  after  calling  on  Brown 
with  others  of  his  cloth,  proposed  a  prayer.  ''Mr.  Wilson," 
asked  Brown,  "do  you  believe  in  slavery?"  Mr.  Wilson  re 
plied,  "I  do,  under  the  present  circumstances."  "Then,"  said 
Brown  with  great  earnestness,  "I  do  not  want  your  prayers. 
I  don't  want  the  prayers  of  any  man  that  believes  in  slavery. 
You  can  pray  to  your  Father  that  heareth  in  secret."95  In  a 
similar  spirit  he  wrote  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  McFarland,  of  Wooster, 
Ohio: 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      545 

"You  may  wonder,  are  there  no  ministers  of  the  gospel  here?  I 
answer,  No.  There  are  no  ministers  of  Christ  here.  These  ministers 
who  profess  to  be  Christian,  and  hold  slaves  or  advocate  slavery,  I 
cannot  abide  them.  My  knees  will  not  bend  in  prayer  with  them 
while  their  hands  are  stained  with  the  blood  of  souls."  *  7  _  j 

To  the  local  newspaper  editors  who  called,  he  was  frank 
and  cordial,  answering  freely  every  question  which  did  not 
"involve  others"  and  that  was  "consistent  with  honor."  ( 
When  asked  by  the  Charles  town  Independent  Democrat  if  he 
were  ready  to  meet  death  under  the  law,  his  reply  was:  "Am 
entirely  ready  so  far  as  I  know,"  and,  "I  feel  no  shame  on 
account  of  my  doom.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  doomed  in  like 
manner.  Why  should  not  I  be?"97  ; 

The  first  of  several  friendly  visitors  from  the  North  were 
Judge  and  Mrs.  Russell.  The  latter  remembers  to  this  day 
how  calm,  rugged  and  comfortable  Brown  looked  on  the  day 
the  court  fixed  the  bounds  of  his  life.  "Oh,  my  dear,"  he 
exclaimed  to  Mrs.  Russell,  "this  is  no  place  for  you."  But 
she  found  that  there  was  some  woman's  work  to  do,  for  she 
had  the  captive's  coat  cleaned,  and  repaired  it  with  her  skilful 
hands,  while  her  husband,  as  they  conversed,  was  ever  looking 
at  the  wide  chimney  in  the  room  and  praying  that  John  Brown 
might  be  spirited  away  to  freedom  by  that  ample  channel.98 
To  the  judge  the  prisoner  reiterated  his  assertion,  often  made 
in  those  prison  days,  that  he  was  not  personally  concerned 
in  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  —  an  assertion  which  misled 
Judge  Russell  into  saying,  on  John  Brown's  word,  that  the 
latter  had  "nothing  to  do"  with  the  killing;  and  Wendell 
Phillips  into  announcing  publicly  in  Cooper  Union  that  Brown 
was  not  at  Pottawatomie  —  "  not  within  twenty-five  miles 
of  the  spot."  " 

"Have  you  objections,"  the  Russells  heard  John  Brown 
say  to  Captain  Avis,  in  calm,  unmoved  tone,  "to  my  writ 
ing  to  my  wife  and  telling  her  that  I  am  to  be  hanged  on 
the  second  of  December?"  "At  last,"  says  Mrs.  Russell,  "we 
had  to  take  our  leave.  I  kissed  him,  weeping.  His  mouth 
trembled,  ever  so  little,  but  he  only  said:  'Now,  go.'"  And 
back  to  their  hotel  the  Russells  went  in  tears,  marvelling  at 
the  utter  absence  in  their  doomed  friend  of  self-commisera 
tion,  or  of  anything  suggesting  a  quarrel  with  fate.  Just  as 


546  JOHN  BROWN 

they  reached  Boston,  Mrs.  Brown  was  starting  for  Harper's 
Ferry.  There  the  Russells  gave  her  the  reassuring  news  of  her 
husband's  comfort  and  happiness,  and  told  her  that  he  would 
not  walk  out  of  jail  then  if  its  doors  were  thrown  open,  — 
so  indebted  to  Captain  Avis  did  he  feel.100 

If  John  Brown  did  not  let  his  wife  join  him  at  that  time,  he 
did  receive  a  visit  from  Mrs.  Rebecca  Spring,  of  Perth  Amboy, 
New  Jersey,  who  exclaimed  to  her  husband,  "I  must  go  and 
help  them,"  the  instant  she  heard  that  there  were  wounded 
Abolitionists  in  prison  at  Harper's  Ferry.  "We  have  talked 
against  slavery  all  these  years;  and  now  somebody  has  done 
something.  These  men  have  risked  their  lives;  I  must  go," 
she  said.  And  go  she  did,  to  tell  John  Brown,  when  she  reached 
his  cell,  by  permission  of  Judge  Parker,  that  "it  is  better  to 
die  for  a  great  idea  than  of  a  fever,"  and  to  learn  from  his 
lips  that  no  spirit  of  revenge  had  actuated  the  raid.  Mrs. 
Spring,  too,  ministered  unto  John  Brown  and  his  cellmate 
Stevens,  the  latter  handsome  and  impressive  despite  his  ter 
rible  wounds,  and  bearing  his  sufferings  with  grim  and  silent 
fortitude,  expecting  to  die,  but  never  once  complaining.101  * 
To  study  Brown  as  he  sat  at  his  cell-desk,  Edwin  A.  Brackett, 
a  sculptor,  of  Boston,  came,  —  thanks  to  Mrs.  G.  L.  Stearns's 
generosity,  —  and  sketched  him  from  the  door  of  the  cell, 
as  the  first  step  toward  the  familiar  idealized  bust.102  Later 
came  an  old  friend  of  the  Pennsylvania  days,  M.  B.  Lowry, 
to  bid  his  instructor  in  tanning  farewell.103  Samuel  C.  Pome- 
roy,  the  friend  from  Kansas,  and  later  its  Senator,  was  greeted 
with,  "  In  prison  ye  came  unto  me,"  when  he  entered  Brown's 
cell  to  ask,  "You  remember  the  rescue  of  John  Doy.  Do  you 
want  your  friends  to  attempt  it?"  But  Brown  only  repeated, 
"I  am  worth  now  infinitely  more  to  die  than  to  live."  104  It 
was  Henry  Clay  Pate,  however,  the  conquered  at  Black  Jack, 
who  most  vividly  called  up  the  Kansas  days  to  Brown.  Their 
meeting  was  not  cordial.  Captain  Pate  came  to  gloat  over 
his  ensnared  conqueror,  and  Captain  Brown  of  Osawatomie 
declared  frankly  that  he  had  met  many  men  possessed  of  more 
courage  than  Captain  Pate,  ex-Border  Ruffian.  To  which 
Captain  Pate  responded  by  charging  Brown  with  all  kinds  of 
villainy,  particularly  theft.105  ,  ^ 
.  *  Mrs.  Spring  now  lives  in  Los  Angeles,  having  nearly  reached  the  century  mark.  • 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     547 

When,  in  response  to  the  panic  fears  of  his  commanders  at 
Charlestown,  Governor  Wise  reached  there  on  November  20, 
with  four  hundred  soldiers,  the  little  Virginia  town  had  as 
sumed  all  the  appearance  of  a  beleaguered  city.  The  troops  \ 
were  quartered  in  the  churches,  schools  and  in  the  court-house. 
The  very  graveyards  were  invaded  for  washing  and  cooking 
purposes  when  the  militia  were  not  parading  or  playing  "fox 
and  hounds"  in  the  streets.106  Extraordinary  were  some  of 
the  military  make-ups  worn  by  the  cavaliers.  "Among  many 
corps,  each  military  gentleman  selected  his  own  uniform; 
and,  while  all  seemed  affected  with  a  contempt  for  their  citi 
zen  clothes,  rarely  more  than  two  agreed  in  the  selection  of 
the  color  of  their  military  dress."107  But  these  men  in  buck 
ram,  as  well  as  Governor  Wise,  were  more  desirous  of  seeing  - 
John  Brown  than  of  seeing  even  the  charming  women  of 
Charlestown ;  and  to  his  cell  they  were  admitted  in  squads  of 
ten  and  fifteen,  save  when  the  Governor  himself  was  closeted 
with  him.108  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  much  as  the  Vir 
ginians  abhorred  John  Brown's  actions,  they  respected  his 
word.  When  he  certified  that  a  suspect  brought  before  him 
had  been  a  Border  Ruffian  and  not  a  Free  State  man,  the 
prisoner  was  instantly  set  free  without  question.109  So  Gov 
ernor  Wise  talked  once  more  with  the  State  prisoner,  with 
absolute  confidence  in  his  veracity  and  integrity.  This  inter 
view  Governor  Wise  himself  has  described : 

"I  visited  John  Brown  but  once  after  his  incarceration  to  await 
his  trial.  I  especially  desired  to  ascertain  whether  he  had  any  com 
munication  to  make  to  me  other  than  he  had  already  made.  He 
repeated  mostly  the  same  information,  expressed  his  personal  re 
gard  and  respect  for  me,  thanked  me  for  my  kindness  in  protecting 
him  from  all  violence  and  in  providing  for  his  comfort.  He  com 
plained  of  some  disease  of  the  kidneys,  and  I  tendered  him  the  best 
aid  of  physician  and  surgeon,  which  he  declined,  for  the  reason  that 
he  was  accustomed  to  an  habitual  treatment,  which  he  had  already 
provided  for  himself.  He  talked  with  me  freely  and  I  offered  to  be 
the  depositary  of  any  confidential  request  consistent  with  my  honor 
and  duty;  and  when  we  parted  he  cordially  gave  me  his  blessing, 
wishing  me  every  return  for  the  attentions  to  him  as  a  prisoner."  no 

WTiile  Governor  Wise  was  with  him,  Brown  corrected  an 
obvious  conflict  between  his  statements  as  to  his  real  object, 
after  his  capture  (that  it  was  not  to  carry  off  the  slaves  and 


548  JOHN  BROWN, 

free  them),  and  his  declaration  in  court,  on  being  sentenced, 
that  his  sole  object  was  to  run  the  slaves  off  as  he  had  done 
in  Missouri.  The  next  day  he  sent  for  Andrew  Hunter,  and 
after  a  talk  with  him,  addressed  to  him  the  following  note: 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  COUNTY,  VA., 
November  22,  1859. 

DEAR  SIR:  I  have  just  had  my  attention  called  to  a  seeming 
confliction  between  the  statement  I  at  first  made  to  Governor  Wise 
and  that  which  I  made  at  the  time  I  received  my  sentence,  regard 
ing  my  intentions  respecting  the  slaves  we  took  about  the  Ferry. 
There  need  be  no  such  confliction,  and  a  few  words  of  explanation 
all,  I  think,  be  quite  sufficient.  I  had  given  Governor  Wise  a  full 
md  particular  account  of  that,  and  when  called  in  court  to  say 
^whether  I  had  anything  further  to  urge,  I  was  taken  wholly  by  sur 
prise,  as  I  did  not  expect  my  sentence  before  the  others.  In  the 
j  hurry  of  the  moment,  I  forgot  much  that  I  had  before  intended  to 
\say,  and  did  not  consider  the  full  bearing  of  what  /  then  said.  I  in 
tended  to  convey  this  idea,  that  it  was  my  object  to  place  the  slaves 
I  in  a  condition  to  defend  their  liberties,  if  they  would,  without  any 
bloodshed,  but  not  that  I  intended  to  run  them  out  of  the  slave  States. 
I  was  not  aware  of  any  such  apparent  confliction  until  my  attention 
was  called  to  it,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  a  man  in  my  then  circum 
stances  should  be  superhuman  in  respect  to  the  exact  purport  of  every 
word  he  might  utter.  What  I  said  to  Governor  Wise  was  spoken 
with  all  the  deliberation  I  was  master  of,  and  was  intended  for  truth  ; 
and  what  I  said  in  court  was  equally  intended  for  truth,  but  required 
a  more  full  explanation  than  I  then  gave.  Please  make  such  use  of 
this  as  you  think  calculated  to  correct  any  wrong  impressions  I  may 
have  given. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

JOHN  BROWN 

ANDREW  HUNTER,  ESQ.,  Present.111* 

The  suffering  wife  of  the  prisoner  had  not  returned  to  North 
Elba,  after  being  stopped  at  Baltimore  on  her  way  to  her  hus 
band.  It  seemed  best  to  those  friends  who  now  came  to  her 
aid  to  keep  her  where  she  could  leave  for  Harper's  Ferry  at 
a  moment's  notice.  So,  heavy  of  heart,  she  went  first  to  Mr. 

*  Andrew  Hunter  always  declined  to  believe  Brown's  explanation  that  he  was 
taken  by  surprise  in  court.  It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  Dr.  John  D. 
Starry  stated  to  a  correspondent  of  the  Tribune  in  May,  1884,  that  it  was  not  true 
that  John  Brown  had  prevaricated  after  his  capture;  that  he  was  a  man  of  excita 
ble  temperament  prone  to  error  in  excitement,  but  that  when  over  his  excitability 
"he  was  as  exact  as  could  be."  See  New  York  Semi-Weekly  Tribune,  May  27, 
1884. 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      549 

William  Still's  home  at  Philadelphia,  whence,  with  Mrs. 
Spring  just  from  John  Brown's  cell,  she  went  to  Eagleswood, 
Mrs.  Spring's  Perth  Amboy  home.  Here  she  received  every 
attention,  but  it  was  deemed  wise  to  have  her  return  to  Phila 
delphia  on  November  16,  with  Mr.  McKim,  with  whom,  and 
with  Lucretia  Mott,  she  spent  the  remaining  weeks  of  her 
husband's  life,  quite  content  to  abide  by  her  husband's  de 
cision  that  it  was  unwise  for  her  to  go  to  his  side.112  On  the 
2 1st,  with  Mr.  McKim's  aid,  she  composed  a  touching  letter 
to  Governor  Wise,  begging  for  the  "mortal  remains  of  my 
husband  and  his  sons"  for  decent  and  tender  interment  among 
their  kindred.113  Of  his  reply  Governor  Wise  made  two  drafts, 
-the  first  even  more  creditable  to  him  than  the  one  sent,  for 
in  it  he  wrote:  "If  duty  and  law  permitted,  you  should  have 
the  lives  of  your  husband  and  sons  instead  of  their  mortal 
remains;"  and  that  his  feelings  as  a  man  "yearned  toward  her 
as  a  wife  and  a  mother,  a  woman  afflicted."  The  letter  Mrs. 
Brown  received  contained  these  characteristic  paragraphs: 

"  I  am  happy,  Madam,  that  you  seem  to  have  the  wisdom  and 
virtue  to  appreciate  my  position  of  duty.  Would  to  God  that '  pub 
lic  considerations  could  avert  his  doom,'  for  The  Omniscient  knows 
that  I  take  not  the  slightest  pleasure  in  the  execution  of  any  whom 
the  laws  condemn.  May  He  have  mercy  on  the  erring  and  the 
afflicted. 

"  Enclosed  is  an  order  to  Major  Genl.  Wm.  B.  Taliaferro,  in  com 
mand  at  Charlestown,  Va.  to  deliver  to  your  order  the  mortal  re 
mains  of  your  husband  '  when  all  shall  be  over;'  to  be  delivered  to 
your  agent  at  Harper's  Ferry;  and  if  you  attend  the  reception  in 
person,  to  guard  you  sacredly  in  your  solemn  mission. 
"  With  tenderness  and  truth,  I  am, 

"  Very  respectfully  your  humble  servant, 

HENRY  A.  WISE."  I14 

On  the  3Oth,  Mrs.  Brown,  in  response  to  the  letter  already 
quoted,  was  at  Harper's  Ferry,  accompanied  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  McKim  and  Hector  Tyndale,  a  rising  young  lawyer  of 
Philadelphia.  Governor  Wise  ordered  by  telegraph  that  she, 
alone,  be  permitted  to  visit  her  husband  the  next  day,  on 
condition  of  returning  to  Harper's  Ferry  that  evening  and 
awaiting  there  the  delivery  of  his  body.115  A  sergeant  and 
eight  men  of  the  Fauquier  Cavalry  escorted  her  carriage  on 
the  long,  dreary  ride  to  Charlestown  on  December  I,  and  a 


550  JOHN  BROWN 

militia  captain  sat  beside  her.116  At  half-past  three  o'clock 
they  were  in  Charlestown,  and  a  few  minutes  later  began 
that  tragic  last  interview  between  husband  and  wife  which 
so  deeply  stirred  the  onlooking  North.  But,  as  was  to  be  ex 
pected  from  two  such  self-controlled  characters  as  John  and 
Mary  Brown,  they  in  nowise  gave  way  to  their  grief,  save  for 
a  minute  or  two  as  they  met.  Mrs.  Brown  had  had  her  mo 
ment  of  uncontrollable  anguish  in  Philadelphia,  when  Gov 
ernor  Wise's  letter  came  to  her  with  its  final  assurance  that 
there  was  no  hope  for  her  husband's  life.117  Now  husband 
and  wife  sat  clown  to  their  final  communion,  —  primarily  to 
discuss  his  will,  her  future,  the  education  of  their  children. 
When  the  coming  event  was  touched  upon,  and  her  courage 
began  to  fail,  he  assured  her  that  while  it  would  be  pleasant 
to  live  longer,  he  was  content  to  go,  for,  after  all,  go  he  must 
sooner  or  later. 

\Vhen,  however,  it  became  evening  and  John  Brown  heard 
that  they  must  part  soon,  he  begged  that  she  be  permitted 
to  pass  the  night  with  him.  But  the  commanding  general, 
Taliaferro,  had  no  option  in  the  face  of  the  Governor's  ex 
plicit  instructions.  It  was  the  only  time  in  all  his  confinement 
that  this  great  prisoner  gave  way  to  anger  or  passion.  It 
availed  him  not;  and  when  the  parting  came,  both  husband 
and  wife  "exhibited  a  composure,  either  feigned  or  real,  that 
was  truly  surprising."  In  Captain  Avis's  room  Mrs.  Brown's 
tears  came  freely,  and  with  her  husband's  last  blessing  ringing 
in  her  ears,  she  began  the  long,  dark  ride  back  to  her  waiting 
friends  in  Harper's  Ferry.118  They  were  practically  prisoners, 
these  kind  souls,  for  when  they  first  went  out  to  walk  the 
streets,  a  bullet  whistled  in  the  air,  to  Hector  Tyndale's  espe 
cial  annoyance.  For  he  little  dreamed  that  twenty-six  months 
later,  on  February  7, 1862,  to  him  would  fall  the  military  duty, 
while  major  of  the  Twenty-eighth  Pennsylvania  Infantry,  of 
burning  nearly  all  of  Harper's  Ferry,  save  John  Brown's  fort. 
So  quickly  did  time  then  bring  its  revenges ! 

With  his  wife  gone,  John  Brown,  whose  will  had  been  drawn 
for  him  by  Andrew  Hunter,119  devoted  himself  for  a  time  to 
his  last  letters  and  to  a  brief  but  calm  sleep.  He  had  already 
sent  a  final  letter  to  his  family,  and,  among  half  a  dozen  other 
last  farewells,  this  note: 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     551 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  Co  VA.  29th  Nov.  1859. 
MRS  GEORGE  L  STEARNS 

Boston  Mass 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND 

No  letter  I  have  received  since  my  imprisonment  here,  has  given 
me  more  satisfaction,  or  comfort;  than  yours  of  the  8th  inst.  I  am 
quite  cheerful :  &  was  never  more  happy.  Have  only  time  [to]  write 
you  a  word.  May  God  forever  reward  you  &  all  yours.  My  love  to 
All  who  love  their  neighbours.  I  have  asked  to  be  spared  from  having 
any  mock;  or  hypocritical  prayers  made  over  me,  when  I  am  publicly 
murdered :  &  that  my  only  religious  attendants  be  poor  little,  dirty, 
ragged,  bare  headed,  &  barefooted  Slave  boys  ;  &  Girls  ;  led  by  some  old 
grey  headed  Slave  Mother. 

Farewell.   Farewell. 

Your  Friend 

JOHN  BROWN120 


The  letter  to  his  family  read  in  part  thus: 


CHARLESTOWN,  PRISON,  JEFFERSON  Co,  VA. 
30th  Nov  1859 

MY  DEARLY  BELOVED  WIFE,  SONS:  &  DAUGHTERS,  EVERYONE 

As  I  now  begin  what  is  probably  the  last  letter  I  shall  ever  wr^te 
to  any  of  you ;  I  conclude  to  write  you  all  at  the  same  time.  .  . 
am  waiting  the  hour  of  my  public  murder  with  great  composure  of 
mind,  &  cheerfulness:  feeling  the  strongest  assurance  that  in  no 
other  possible  way  could  I  be  used  to  so  much  advance  the  cause 
of  God ;  &  of  humanity:  £  that  nothing.that  either  I  or  all  my  family 
have  sacrificed  or  suffered:  will  be  losLrThe  reflection  that  a  wise  & 
merciful,  as  well  as  just  &  holy  God:  rules  not'only  the  affairs  of  this 
world;  but  of  all  worlds;  is  a  rock  to  set  our  feet  upon;  under  all 
circumstances:  even  those  more  severely  trying  ones:  into  which  our 
own  follies;  &  rongs  have  placed  us.  I  have  now  no  doubt  but  that 
our  seeming  disaster:  will  ultimately  result  in  the  most  glorious 
success.  So  my  dear  shattered  6*  broken  family  be  of  good  cheer;  & 
believe  &  trust  in  God;  "with  all  your  heart  &  with  all  your  soul;" 
for  "he  doeth  All  things  well."  Do  not  feel  ashamed  on  my  account; 
nor  for  one  moment  despair  of  the  cause;  or  grow  weary  of  well  doing. 
I  bless  God ;  I  never  felt  stronger  confidence  in  the  certain  and  near 
approach  of  a  bright  Morning;  &  a  glorious  day ;  than  I  have  felt; 
&  do  now  feel;  since  my  confinement  here.  I  am  endeavouring  to 
"return"  like  a  "poor  Prodigal"  as  I  am,  to  my  Father:  against 
whom  I  have  always  sined:  in  the  hope;  that  he  may  kindly,  &  for 
givingly  "meet  me:  though  a  verry  great  way  off"  Oh  my  dear  Wife 
&  Children  would  "to  God"  you  could  know  how  I  have  been 
"travelling  in  birth  for  you "  all :  that  no  one  of  you  "may  fail  of  the 
grace  of  God,  through  Jesus  Christ:"  that  no  one  of  you  may  be 
blind  to  the  truth:  &  glorious  "light  of  his  word,"  in  which  Life; 


552  JOHN  BROWN 

&  Immortality;  are  brought  to  light.  I  beseech  you  every  one  to 
make  the  bible  your  dayly  &  Nightly  study;  with  a  childlike  honest, 
candid,  teachable  spirit :  out  of  love  and  respect  for  your  Husband ; 
&  Father :  &  I  beseech  the  God  of  my  Fathers ;  to  open  all  your  eyes 
to  a  discovery  of  the  truth.  You  cannot  imagine  how  much  you  may 
soon  need  the  consolations  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Circumstances  like  my  own;  for  more  than  a  month  past;  con 
vince  me  beyound  all  doubt :  of  our  great  need:  of  something  more  to 
rest  our  hopes  on ;  than  merely  our  own  vague  theories  framed  up, 
while  our  prejudices  are  excited ;  or  our  vanity  worked  up  to  its  high 
est  pitch.  Oh  do  not  trust  your  eternal  all  uppon  the  boisterous 
Ocean,  without  even  a  Helm  ;  or  Compass  to  aid  you  in  steering.  I  do 
not  ask  any  oi  you;  to  throw  away  your  reason:  I  only  ask  you,  to 
make  a  candid  &  sober  use  of  your  reason :  My  dear  younger  children 
will  you  listen  to  the  last  poor  admonition  of  one  who  can  only  love 
you  ?  Oh  be  determined  at  once  to  give  your  whole  hearts  to  God ;  & 
let  nothing  shake;  or  alter;  that  resolution.  You  need  have  no  fear 
of  regreting  it.  Do  not  be  vain ;  and  thoughtless :  but  sober  minded. 
And  let  me  entreat  you  all  to  love  the  whole  remnant  of  our  once  great 
family:  "with  a  pure  heart  fervently.'"  Try  to  build  again:  your 
broken  walls:  &  to  make  the  utmost  of  every  stone  that  is  left.  No 
thing  can  so  tend  to  make  life  a  blessing  as  the  consciousness  that  you 
love :  &  are  beloved :  &  "  love  ye  the  stranger  "  still.  It  is  ground  of  the 
utmost  comfort  to  my  mind :  to  know  that  so  many  of  you  as  have 
had  the  opportunity;  have  given  full  proof  of  your  fidelity  to  the 
great  family  of  man.  Be  faithful  until  death.  From  the  exercise  of 
habitual  love  to  man :  it  cannot  be  very  hard :  to  learn  to  love  his 
maker.  I  must  yet  insert  a  reason  for  my  firm  belief  in  the  Divine 
inspiration  of  the  Bible:  notwithstanding  I  am  (perhaps  naturally) 
skeptical:  (certainly  not,  credulous.)  I  wish  you  all  to  consider  it 
most  thoroughly  ;  when  you  read  the  blessed  book ;  &  see  whether  you 
can  not  discover  such  evidence  yourselves.  It  is  the  purity  of  heart, 
feeling,  or  motive :  as  well  as  word,  &  action  which  is  everywhere  in 
sisted  on ;  that  distinguish  it  from  all  other  teachings  ;  that  commends 
it  to  my  conscience:  whether  my  heart  be  "willing,  &  obedient"  or 
not.  The  inducements  that  it  holds  out;  are  another  reason  of  my 
conviction  of  its  truth:  &  genuineness:  that  I  cannot  here  omit;  in 
this  my  last  argument  for  the  Bible.  Eternal  life  ;  is  that  my  soul  is 
"  panting  after1'  this  moment.  I  mention  this ;  as  reason  for  endeavour 
ing  to  leave  a  valuable  copy  of  the  Bible  to  be  carefully  preserved  in 
remembrance  of  me:  to  so  many  of  my  posterity;  instead  of  some 
other  things  of  equal  cost. 

I  beseech  you  all  to  live  in  habitual  contentment  with  verry 
moderate  circumstances :  &  gains,  of  worldly  store :  &  most  earnestly 
to  teach  this:  to  your  children  ;  &  Childrens  Children  ;  after  you :  by 
example :  as  well ;  as  precept.  Be  determined  to  know  by  experience 
as  soon  as  may  be :  whether  bible  instruction  is  of  Divine  origin  or 
not;  which  says;  "Owe  no  man  anything  but  to  love  one  another." 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED     553 

John  Rogers  wrote  to  his  children,  "Abhor  the  arrant  whore  of 
Rome."  John  Brown  writes  to  his  children  to  abhor  with  undiing 
hatred,  also:  that  "sum  of  all  vilainies;"  Slavery.  Remember  that 
"he  that  is  slow  to  anger  is  better  than  the  mighty:  and  he  that  ruleth 
his  spirit;  than  he  that  taketh  a  city."  Remember  also:  that  "they 
that  be  wise  shall  shine :  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  : 
as  the  stars  forever;  &  ever."  And  now  dearly  beloved  Farewell, 
To  God  &  the  word  of  his  grace  I  comme[n]d  you  all. 
Your  Affectionate  Husband  &  Father 

JOHN  BROWN  121 

The  last  night  was  quickly  over;  with  the  coming  of  the 
dawn  men  were  stirring,  for  this  day  was  to  see  a  "  judicial 
murder"  which,  more  than  any  other  in  the  country's  history, 
thrilled  it  from  ocean  to  ocean.  He  who  was  to  pay  the  pen 
alty  was  early  at  his  Bible,  in  which,  before  bestowing  it  upon 
a  confectioner  who  had  been  kind  to  him,  he  had  marked  the 
passages  which  had  most  influenced  his  life.122  Then  there 
was  still  another  letter  to  be  written  to  his  wife: 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  Co,  VA.    \ 
2d  Decem,  1859 

MY  DEAR  WIFE 

I  have  time  to  enclose  the  within  :  &  the  above :  which  I  forgot 
yesterday:  &  to  bid  you  another  Farewell:  "be  of  good  cheer"  and 
God  Allmighty  bless,  save,  comfort,  guide,  &  keep;  you,  to  "the 
end." 

Your  Affectionate  Husband 

JOHN  BROWN.  ! 

The  enclosures  read  thus: 

"To  be  inscribed  on  the  old  family  Monument  at  North  Elba. 

"Oliver  Brown  born  1839  was  killed  at  Harpers  ferry  Va 

Nov  i  yth  1859. 

"Watson  Brown,  born  1835  was  wounded  at  Harpers  ferry 

Nov  iyth  and  died  Nov  I9th  1859. 

"  (My  Wife  can)  supply  blank  dates  to  above 

"John  Brown  born  May  9th  1800  was  executed  at  Charlestown, 
Va,  December  2d  1859." 

"  Charlestown,  Jefferson  Co,  Va,  2d  Decem."i859.  It  is  my  desire 
that  my  Wife  have  all  my  personal  property  not  previously  disposed 
of  by  me;  &  the  entire  use  of  all  my  landed  property  during  her 
natural  life;  &  that  after  her  death  the  proceeds  of  such  land  be 
equally  divided  between  all  my  then  living  Children:  &  that  what 
would  be  a  Childs  share  be  given  to  the  Children  of  each  of  my  Two 
sons  ;  who  fell  at  Harpers  ferry;  Va:  &  that  a  Childs  share  be  divided 


554  JOHN  BROWN 

among  the  children  of  any  of  my  now  living  Children  who  may  die 
before  their  Mother  (my  present  much  beloved  Wife.)  No  formal 
will:  can  be  of  use  when  my  expressed  wishes;  are  made  known  to 
my  dutiful;  and  dearly  beloved  family. 

JOHN  BROWN  "  123  * 

And  while  he  was  thus  using  his  pen,  the  prison  guards  who 
should  have  hated  were  moving  automatically,  silently,  with 
bowed  heads,  lest  the  tears  so  near  to  welling  up  should  over 
flow.  The  majesty  of  death  had  now  laid  its  spell  upon  them, 
as  the  dominating  personality  of  the  man  they  guarded  had 
won  from  them  a  regard  they  wished  not  to  bestow.  To 
each  quivering  guard  John  Brown  now  gave  a  book;  to  his 
trusty  jailer  his  silver  watch.124  Then,  after  a  few  minutes 
alone  on  his  knees  in  prayer,  it  was  "  God  bless  you,  my  men," 
and  "May  we  all  meet  in  Heaven,"  to  those  who  had  followed 
him  even  to  the  verge  of  the  grave  —  save  two.  To  John 
E.  Cook  he  was  reproachful  because  of  some  phrases  in  Cook's 
confession  which  seemed  to  his  leader  untruthful  and  mis 
leading.  To  Hazlett  he  said  not  a  word,  for  neither  he  nor  any 
of  the  other  raiders  would  admit  that  this  was  one  of  their 
chosen  company,  in  the  vain  hope  thus  to  cheat  the  scaffold 
of  his  young  life.125 

And  then  John  Brown  stood  on  the  porch  of  the  jail,  the 
last  long  journey  begun,  with  lieutenants  and  guards  by  his 
side.  No  little  slave-child  was  held  up  for  the  benison  of  his 
lips,  for  none  but  soldiery  was  near  and  the  street  was  full  of 
marching  men.  "  I  had  no  idea  that  Governor  Wise  considered 
my  execution  so  important,"  burst  from  his  lips.126  But  even 
in  that  supreme  moment  the  race  for  which  his  life  was  forfeit 
was  not  forgotten.  For,  as  he  left  his  cell,  he  handed  to  one 
who  stood  near  this  final,  wonderfully  prophetic  and  imper 
ishable  message  to  the  "million  hearts"  of  his  countrymen, 
which,  as  Wendell  Phillips  said,  had  been  "melted  by  that 
old  Puritan  soul:" 

"I  John  Brown  am  now  quite  certain  that  the  crimes  of  this 
guilty  land:  will  never  be  purged  away;  but  with  Blood.  I  had  as  I 
now  think :  vainly  flattered  myself  that  without  very  much  bloodshed ; 
it  might  be  done."  127 

'  *  He  had  already  determined,  with  absolute  equanimity  of  spirit,  the  kind  of 
coffin  in  which  he  was  to  be  buried.  For  his  other  wills,  see  Appendix. 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      555 

To  this  true  prophet  on  the  brink  of  eternity  it  now  ap 
pears  that  nothing  was  concealed  on  that  last  morning.  Must 
he  not  again  have  read  the  onrushing  future  as  he  surveyed 
the  troops  massed  about  the  scaffold  on  that  clear  and  warm 
and  beautiful  December  day?  For  behind  his  gibbet  stood 
"Stonewall"  Jackson,  some  of  whose  young  artillerymen,  in 
the  cadet  red  and  gray  of  the  Virginia  Military  Institute,  were, 
within  three  years'  time,  while  still  tender  lads,  to  offer  up 
their  lives  in  defence  of  the  very  valley  upon  whose  beauties 
they  now  gazed ;  Jackson  himself  was  to  give  his  life's  blood 
to  purge  the  nation  of  its  crimes;  and  through  the  loss  of  his 
high-spirited  and  gifted  son  then  in  the  ranks  of  the  Richmond 
company,  Governor  Wise  was  soon  to  know  what  John  Brown, 
the  father,  had  suffered  in  the  engine  house  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
There,  on  a  snow-white  horse,  rode  to  and  fro  Captain  Turner 
Ashby,  of  knightly  bearing  and  superb  horsemanship,  destined, 
less  than  three  years  later,  to  die  a  general  of  Confederate  cav 
alry.128  And  in  the  closed  ranks  stood  now,  shoulder  to  shoul 
der,  the  colonels  and  generals  of  many  a  veteran  legion-to-be, 
whose  blood  was  soon  to  besprinkle  Virginia  from  end  to  end. 
Here  was  forecast,  too,  the  cruelest  blood-letting  of  all  the 
long  and  ghastly  line;  for,  in  a  Richmond  company,  rifle  on 
shoulder,  stood  the  sinister  figure  of  J.  Wilkes  Booth,129  than 
whom  no  single  American  ever  dealt  a  wickeder  blow  to  his 
country.  If  John  Brown's  prophetic  sight  wandered  across 
the  hills  to  the  scene  of  his  brief  Virginia  battle,  it  must 
have  beheld  his  generous  captor,  Robert  E.  Lee,  again  in  mili 
tary  charge  of  Harper's  Ferry,  wholly  unwitting  that  upon 
his  shoulders  was  soon  to  rest  the  fate  of  a  dozen  confederated 
States.  And  if  the  prisoner's  spiritual  glance  carried  thus  far, 
it  must  also  have  found  its  way  through  the  flimsy  walls 
of  the  Wager  House,  into  a  room  where  waited  a  little  group 
around  a  heart-broken  woman  with  "hands  locked,  eyes 
streaming,  hearts  uplifted  in  prayer,"  waiting  for  the  hour 
to  strike  which  should  tell  them  that  John  Brown  was  beyond 
the  reach  of  enemies  and  friends  alike.130 

His  visions  did  not,  however,  prevent  his  drinking  in  the 
rare  charm  of  the  landscape.  'This  is  a  beautiful  country. 
I  never  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  it  before,"  fell  from  his 
lips,131  as  he  came  upon  the  field,  seated  on  his  coffin,  in  a 


556  JOHN  BROWN 

wagon  drawn  by  two  white  horses,  and  preceded  by  three 
companies  of  infantry.  There  were  fifteen  hundred  soldiers 
present  to  see  that  this  one  old  man  was  hanged.  But,  watch 
him  as  they  might,  they  could  detect  no  sign  of  flinching. 
With  alacrity  the  despised  Abolitionist  climbed  down  from 
the  wagon  and  ascended  the  scaffold  to  take  one  last,  longing 
glance  at  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains  which  had  to  him  spelled 
liberty  for  the  enslaved  these  many  long  years.  With  cheer 
fulness  he  shook  the  hands  of  those  near  him  and  bade  others 
adieu.  Not  when  the  cap  was  drawn  over  his  head,  his  arms 
pinioned  at  the  elbows,  the  noose  slipped  around  his  neck, 
was  there  a  single  waver.  Even  in  all  the  unpicturesqueness  of 
his  ill-fitting  suit  and  trousers  and  loose  carpet-slippers,  John 
Brown  was  a  wonderfully  dignified  and  impressive  figure  on 
the  scaffold,  because  of  the  serenity  and  calmness  of  his  spirit. 
The  solemnity  of  it  all  moved  every  one,  from  the  boyish 
cadets  to  the  oldest  soldiers.  The  most  deeply  religious  man 
among  the  troops,  "Stonewall"  Jackson,  was  shaken  like 
the  rest,  and  "sent  up  a  fervent  petition"  to  Heaven  that 
John  Brown  might  be  saved.  Awful  was  the  thought,  to  him, 
that  this  man  about  to  die  "might  receive  the  sentence  'De 
part,  ye  wicked,  into  the  everlasting  fire.'"  132  But  no  such 
thought  was  in  the  mind  of  John  Brown.  His  soul  was  bent 
on  high,  facing  in  confidence  the  future.  While  the  three 
companies  that  had  been  his  escort  deployed  slowly  into 
place,  he  stood  erect  as  a  soldier  of  the  Lord.  As  if  to  test  his 
courage  to  the  end,  they  were  a  long  twelve  minutes  filing 
into  place,  while  John  Brown  showed  Virginia  how  a  brave 
man  could  die. 

"The  sheriff  asked  him,"  writes  Colonel  J.  T.  L.  Preston, 
who  stood  hard  by,  "if  he  should  give  him  a  private  signal, 
before  the  fatal  moment.  He  replied  in  a  voice  that  sounded 
to  me  unnaturally  natural  —  so  composed  was  its  tone  and 
so  distinct  its  articulation  —  that  '  it  did  not  matter  to  him, 
if  only  they  would  not  keep  him  too  long  waiting.' '  But  the 
little-drilled  troops  took  forever,  it  seemed,  in  moving  into 
place,  —  not,  as  was  alleged  in  the  North,  to  try  the  prisoner's 
nerves,  but  because  the  exact  formation  had  been  ordained 
in  advance  and  there  was  no  one  thoughtful  or  daring  enough 
to  give  the  signal  before  it  was  complete.  But  come  the  word 


BY  MAN  SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE  SHED      557 

did  at  last.  A  single  blow  of  the  hatchet  in  the  sheriff's  hand 
and, 

"the  man  of  strong  and  bloody  hand,  of  fierce  passions,  of  iron  will, 
of  wonderful  vicissitudes,  —  the  terrible  partisan  of  Kansas  —  the 
capturer  of  the  United  States  Arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry — the 
would-be  Catiline  of  the  South —  the  demigod  of  the  Abolitionists  — 
the  man  execrated  and  lauded  —  damned  and  prayed  for  ...  John 
Brown,  was  hanging  between  heaven  and  earth." 

The  painful  silence  that  followed  was  broken  by  Colonel 
Preston's  solemnly  declaring:  "So  perish  all  such  enemies  of 
Virginia!  M\  such  enemies  of  the  Union!  All  such  foes  of  the 
human  race!"  It  was  said  without  a  shade  of  animosity, 
without  a  note  of  exultation;  but  the  blind  man  was  not  he 
who  swung  from  the  rope  above.  For  his  eyes  had  seen,  long 
before  his  light  had  failed,  the  coming  of  the  blue-clad  masses 
of  the  North  who  were  to  make  a  mockery  of  Colonel  Pres 
ton's  words  and  strike  down  the  destroying  tyranny  of  slavery, 
to  free  Virginia  from  the  most  fateful  of  self-imposed  bonds. 
As  the  troops  now  solemnly  tramped  away,  with  all  decorum 
and  without  any  demonstrations,  in  far-off  Albany  they  were 
firing  one  hundred  guns  as  the  dirge  of  the  martyr.134  And 
meanwhile,  John  Brown's  soul  was  marching  on,  and  all  in 
the  North  who  had  a  conscience  and  a  heart  knew  that  John 
A.  Andrew  voiced  the  truth  when  he  declared  that  "whether 
the  enterprise  of  John  Brown  and  his  associates  in  Virginia 
was  wise  or  foolish,  right  or  wrong;  I  only  know  that,  whether 
the  enterprise  itself  was  the  one  or  the  other,  John  Brown 
himself  is  right."  l» 


CHAPTER  XV 
YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE 

"THERE  need  be  no  tears  for  him,  for  few  men  die  so  happily, 
so  satisfied  with  time,  place  and  circumstance  as  did  he," 
wrote  Samuel  Bowles  in  the  Springfield  Republican,  the  day 
when  John  Brown's  body  had  hung  for  thirty-seven  minutes 
on  the  scaffold.  Perhaps  at  the  very  hour  when  he  penned 
this  editorial,  only  forty-four  days  after  John  Brown  left 
Harper's  Ferry  in  chains,  yet  about  to  shake  the  nation  to  its 
depths,  Brown's  lifeless  body  was  taken  back  to  the  scene  of 
his  raid  and  delivered  to  his  wife,  —  not,  however,  until  Hec 
tor  Tyndale  had  insisted  on  the  opening  of  the  coffin  to  make 
sure  that  no  other  body  had  been  substituted,  as  some  had 
insinuated  would  be  the  case.1  But  the  Virginians  had  done 
more  than  keep  faith;  they  had  furnished,  by  order  of  General 
Taliaferro,  a  body-guard  of  fifteen  civilians,  who  volunteered 
to  see  that  no  harm  befell  the  body  in  its  simple  pine  coffin 
during  its  brief  trip  from  Charlestown  to  Harper's  Ferry,  on 
a  special  train  of  two  cars.2  The  very  courtesy  and  human 
ity  of  this  action  revealed  the  impossibility  of  making  of  this 
execution  the  ignominious  hanging  of  a  wicked  criminal. 
The  Virginians  were  willing,  too,  that  Mrs.  Brown  should  take 
with  her  the  bodies  of  Oliver  and  Watson  Brown;  but  the 
latter's  remains  had  been  taken  to  the  Winchester  Medi 
cal  College  for  preservation  as  an  anatomical  specimen,  and 
Mrs.  Brown  felt  herself  unequal  to  the  task  of  identifying 
the  body  of  Oliver.3  His  remains,  with  those  of  the  eight  other 
raiders  who  died  in  Harper's  Ferry,  were  buried  in  two  large 
boxes  by  James  Mansfield,  to  whom  the  county  gave  five 
dollars  for  his  services.  Almost  at  the  water's  edge  of  the 
Shenandoah,  in  an  unmarked  grave,  he  interred  them,  wrap 
ping  them  first  in  the  blanket-shawls  they  had  worn  over  their 
shoulders  as  they  went  to  their  death  in  Harper's  Ferry.4  Here 
they  lay  while  the  hosts  in  Blue  and  Gray  marched  and  fought 
over  them.* 

*  Until  1899,  when,  with  Mansfield's  aid,  the  bodies  were  moved  to  North  Elba 
by  Dr.  Thomas  Featherstonhaugh,  of  Washington,  and  others  interested,  and 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  559 

All  was  quiet  enough  at  Harper's  Ferry  when  the  funeral 
party  started  for  Philadelphia,  but  the  North  at  that  hour 
was  ringing  with  the  news  and  echoing  with  protests.  At  Ra 
venna,  Ohio,  at  seven  o'clock  there  was  a  meeting  of  sympa 
thy,  to  which  were  invited  all  "who  hate  oppression  and  all 
its  vengeful,  savage  barbarities  and  who  sympathize  with  the 
devoted  Martyrs  of  Liberty."  5  In  Cleveland,  Melodeon  Hall 
was  draped  in  mourning  for  a  meeting  attended  by  fourteen 
hundred  persons;  and  as  the  train  bearing  Brown's  body 
moved  on  toward  Baltimore,  this  gathering  solemnly  resolved 
that  his  execution  "for  a  conscientious  observance  of  the  law 
of  brotherhood  as  inculcated  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  law  of 
freedom  as  taught  by  Thomas  Jefferson,"  proved  that  "the 
State  of  Virginia  under  the  lead  of  Henry  A.  Wise"  was  a 
"contemptible  caricature  of  the  Old  Dominion  in  the  days 
of  George  Washington.  .  .  ."  6  In  Philadelphia  they  had  not 
waited  as  long;  a  public  prayer  meeting  was  held  at  the  hour 
of  the  execution,  only,  however,  to  be  broken  up  by  a  number 
of  Southern  medical  students,  with  whom  the  public  openly 
sympathized.7  In  New  York,  Rochester,  Syracuse,  Fitch- 
burg,  Concord  (Massachusetts),  Plymouth,  New  Bedford, 
Concord  (New  Hampshire),  and  Manchester,  meetings  were 
held,  and  in  many  places  the  bells  were  tolled. 

But  it  was  in  Boston  that  the  excitement  reached  its  height. 
Motions  to  adjourn  in  honor  of  Brown  were  defeated  in  both 
houses  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  —  by  only  three 
votes  in  the  Senate,  while  in  the  House  the  vote  stood  141 
to  6.8  That  night,  however,  Tremont  Temple  was  filled  to 
the  doors  by  one  of  the  greatest  meetings  of  the  many  notable 
ones  it  had  sheltered.  When  the  doors  were  opened,  men 
and  women  were  swept  in,  some  without  touching  their  feet  to 
the  ground.  The  meeting,  held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Ameri 
can  Anti-slavery  Society,  was  presided  over  by  Samuel  E. 

reinterred  by  the  side  of  their  commander  with  those  of  Stevens  and  Hazlett, 
Watson  Brown's  body  having  previously  been  brought  there.  The  changed  opin 
ion  of  their  country  appears  from  the  fact  that  whereas  Dauphin  Thompson  and 
Jeremiah  G.  Anderson  were  killed  by  United  States  marines  in  1859,  United 
States  infantrymen  of  the  Twenty-sixth  Regiment  fired  a  salute  over  their  graves 
and  those  of  their  associates  at  North  Elba  in  1899.  The  Rev.  Joshua  Young,  who 
read  the  service  over  John  Brown's  body  in  1859,  again  officiated;  Bishop  Henry 
C.  Potter  also  took  part  in  the  ceremonies. 


56o  JOHN  BROWN 

Sewall.  Among  the  many  placards  which  decorated  the  hall 
was  one  bearing  these  words  of  Lafayette:  "I  never  would 
have  drawn  my  sword  in  the  cause  of  America,  if  I  could  have 
conceived  that  thereby  I  was  helping  to  found  a  nation  of 
slaves."  William  Lloyd  Garrison  declared  that  the  meeting 
was  called  to  witness  John  Brown's  resurrection,  and  read 
Brown's  address  to  the  court  when  sentenced.  He  said  in 
the  course  of  his  speech : 

"Nevertheless,  I  am  a  non-resistant,  and  I  not  only  desire,  but 
have  labored  unremittingly  to  effect,  the  peaceful  abolition  of 
slavery,  by  an  appeal  to  the  reason  and  conscience  of  the  slave 
holder;  yet,  as  a  peace  man  —  an  'ultra'  peace  man  —  I  am  pre 
pared  to  say:  'Success  to  every  slave  insurrection  at  the  South,  and 
in  every  slave  country.'  And  I  do  not  see  how  I  compromise  or 
stain  my  peace  profession  in  making  that  declaration.  .  .  .  Rather 
than  see  men  wearing  their  chains  in  a  cowardly  and  servile  spirit,  I 
would,  as  an  advocate  of  peace,  much  rather  see  them  breaking  the 
head  of  the  tyrant  with  their  chains.  Give  me,  as  a  non-resistant, 
Bunker  Hill,  and  Lexington,  and  Concord,  rather  than  the  cowardice 
and  servility  of  a  Southern  slave-plantation."  9 

The  size  and  enthusiasm  of  this  meeting  were  the  more 
remarkable  because  there  had  been,  just  two  weeks  earlier, 
on  November  19,  a  gathering  in  the  same  place  in  aid  of  John 
Brown's  family.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  the  Rev.  Jacob  M. 
Manning,  Wendell  Phillips  and  John  A.  Andrew  spoke,  the 
last  named  also  presiding  and  thereby  apparently  endanger 
ing  his  political  future.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  he  ut 
tered  his  famous  sentiment  about  John  Brown's  being  right, 
and  declared  that  the  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery 
was  as  irresistible  as  that  between  right  and  wrong.  Wendell 
Phillips's  oratory  was  at  its  best,  for  to  his  deep  feeling  about 
slavery  itself  was  added  all  the  chivalry  of  his  generous,  high- 
spirited,  yet  aristocratic  nature.  Said  Emerson  : 

"  It  is  easy  to  see  what  a  favorite  he  [John  Brown]  will  be  with  his- 
tory,  which  plays  such  pranks  with  temporary  reputations.  Nothing 
can  resist  the  sympathy  which  all  elevated  minds  must  feel  with 
Brown,  and  through  them  the  whole  civilized  world;  and,  if  he  must 
suffer,  he  must  drag  official  gentlemen  into  an  immortality  most 
undesirable,  and  of  which  they  have  already  some  disagreeable  fore 
bodings."  10 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  561 

Not  often  is  it  given  to  a  condemned  man  to  have  the 
opinion  of  posterity  thus  interpreted  to  him  by  such  great 
souls  as  Andrew,  Phillips  and  Emerson,  whose  words,  pene 
trating  as  they  did  to  the  prisoner  of  Charlestown,  must  have 
strengthened  his  already  wonderful  composure. 

When  the  train  which  bore  John  Brown's  body  and  its 
guardians  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  about  one  o'clock  on  the 
day  after  the  execution,  it  was  met  by  a  reception  committee 
headed  by  Dr.  William  H.  Furness,  who,  with  Hector  Tyn- 
dale,  led  Mrs.  Brown  away.11  But  the  excitement  in  the 
great  crowd  on  all  sides  of  the  station  was  so  intense  that  it 
was  not  safe  to  take  the  body  to  the  undertaker's,  as  had  been 
planned.  An  empty  hearse  driven  hastily  away  dispersed 
a  part  of  the  crowd  as  effectually  as  a  platoon  of  police,  and 
then  the  coffin  was  placed  in  a  furniture  car  and  carried  to 
the  Walnut  Street  wharf,  whence  it  was  taken  by  boat  to 
New  York  on  its  way  to  North  Elba.12  Thither  Wendell 
Phillips  and  J.  Miller  McKim  escorted  the  body,  as  well  as 
Mrs.  Brown;  at  every  town  at  which  they  tarried,  Troy, 
Rutland,  Vergennes  and  Westport,  bells  tolled  and  the  citi 
zens  appeared,  to  express  their  sympathy  to  Mrs.  Brown.13 
At  Elizabethtown,  the  last  resting-place  for  a  night,  a  guard 
of  honor  watched  the  coffin  in  the  court-house  until  dawn. 
Thence  over  almost  impassable  roads  for  the  twenty-five  miles 
to  North  Elba,  which  John  Brown  had  himself  so  often  cov 
ered  on  foot,  with  the  elements  against  him,  the  funeral  party 
journeyed,  all  day  of  Wednesday,  December  7.  The  next 
day,  in  the  early  afternoon,  they  laid  all  that  was  mortal  of 
John  Brown  in  a  grave  by  the  great  boulder  near  his  still 
unfinished  house,  —  the  huge  stone  being  then,  as  to-day,  the 
best  possible  monument  to  the  native  ruggedness  and  stead 
fastness  of  his  character.  Near-by,  the  towering  White  Face 
Mountain  rises  in  all  its  grandeur,  and  well  beyond,  the  tallest 
peak  in  the  Adirondacks  stands  sentinel  over  the  grave. 

The  women  of  his  family,  with  Salmon  Brown,  the  sole 
son  who  dared  be  present,  and  Henry  Thompson,  were  the 
chief  mourners.14  Four  widows  were  there,  Mrs.  Brown  and 
the  wives  of  Oliver  and  W7atson  Brown  —  Oliver's  soon  to 
die  with  the  infant  its  father  had  not  lived  to  see  —  and  of 
William  Thompson.  The  Rev.  Joshua  Young  had  come  from 


562  JOHN  BROWN 

his  pulpit  in  Burlington,  Vermont,  to  read  from  the  Scriptures 
and  to  pray  at  the  grave,  for  which  service  he  was  promptly 
deprived  of  his  church.  Mr.  McKim  once  more  bore  his  tes 
timony,  and  then,  in  the  place  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
whose  absence  from  Boston  prevented  his  receiving  in  time 
the  invitation  to  attend  and  speak,  Wendell  Phillips,  the 
matchless  orator  of  the  Abolition  cause,  addressed  the  little 
gathering  in  the  crowded  house.  Said  he  of  John  Brown: 

"  Marvellous  old  man !  .  .  .  He  has  abolished  slavery  in  Virginia. 
You  may  say  this  is  too  much.  Our  neighbors  are  the  last  men  we 
know.  The  hours  that  pass  us  are  the  ones  we  appreciate  the  least. 
Men  walked  Boston  streets,  when  night  fell  on  Bunker's  Hill,  and 
pitied  Warren,  saying,  'Foolish  man!  Thrown  away  his  life!  Why 
did  n't  he  measure  his  means  better?'  Now  we  see  him  standing 
colossal  on  that  blood-stained  sod,  and  severing  that  day  the  tie 
which  bound  Boston  to  Great  Britain.  That  night  George  III 
ceased  to  rule  in  New  England.  History  will  date  Virginia  Eman 
cipation  from  Harper's  Ferry.  True,  the  slave  is  still  there.  So, 
when  the  tempest  uproots  a  pine  on  your  hills,  it  looks  green  for 
months  —  a  year  or  two.  Still,  it  is  timber,  not  a  tree.  John  Brown 
has  loosened  the  roots  of  the  slave  system;  it  only  breathes, —  it 
does  not  live,  —  hereafter." 

And  as  the  coffin  was  lowered,  members  of  a  neighboring 
colored  family,  that  of  Lyman  Epps,  sang  some  of  the  hymns 
for  which  he  had  cared,  and  John  Brown  was  at  rest  among 
the  negroes  he  had  labored  for,  near  the  women  of  his  family 
who  had  toiled  and  suffered  anguish  for  him  and  his  cause,  in 
the  shadow  of  the  great  mountains  he  had  loved. 

But  the  meetings  of  sympathy  and  grief  did  not  stop  with 
the  funeral.  They  went  on  for  one  reason  or  another,  —  the 
raising  of  funds  for  the  family  was  one,  —  and  soon  there 
were  gatherings  of  protest  and  denunciation  by  pro-slavery 
sympathizers.  The  great  Cooper  Union  meeting  in  New  York, 
addressed  by  Wendell  Phillips,  on  December  15,  was  inter 
rupted  throughout  by  men  sent  there  by  denunciations  of  it 
in  the  Herald.  On  the  same  day,  an  anti-slavery  convention 
in  Philadelphia  devoted  itself  to  the  Charlestown  martyr.16 
A  week  earlier,  a  large  Union  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  in 
Boston,  had  repudiated  the  raid,  acclaimed  the  Union,  and 
boldly  asserted  the  right  of  Virginia  to  her  peculiar  institution. 


THE    NORTH    ELBA    FARMHOUSE 


JOHN    BROWN'S   GRAVE 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  563 

An  ex-Governor  of  the  State,  Levi  Lincoln,  presided,  and  the 
names  of  four  other  ex-Governors  and  some  of  the  best  known 
men  in  Boston  were  on  the  list  of  vice-presidents.16  The 
Union  meeting  in  New  York,  on  December  19,  adopted  a  reso 
lution  denouncing  "all  acts  or  inflammatory  appeals  which 
intend  or  tend  to  make  this  Union  less  perfect,  or  to  jeopard 
or  disturb  its  domestic  tranquillity,  or  to  mar  the  spirit  of 
harmony,  compromise  and  concession  upon  which  the  Union 
was  formed  by  our  fathers.  .  .  ."  Another  resolution  read: 
"That  we  regard  the  recent  outrage  at  Harper's  Ferry  as  a 
crime  —  not  only  against  the  State  of  Virginia,  but  against 
the  Union  itself.  .  .  .  That,  in  our  opinion,  the  subject  of 
slavery  has  been  too  long  mingled  with  party  politics." 
Among  the  speakers  were  Charles  O' Conor,  ex-Governor 
Washington  Hunt,  John  A.  Dix,  Professor  Ormsby  M. 
Mitchel,  later  a  distinguished  Northern  general,  and  the  Rev. 
Dr.  George  W.  Bethune.  Mayor  Daniel  F.  Tieman  was  in  the 
chair.  There  were  three  overflow  meetings  in  the  street. 17  Sim 
ilar  meetings  were  held  in  many  another  town  and  city,  of  those 
who  wanted  to  preserve  the  Union  of  the  States  by  keeping 
silent  on  the  slavery  question,  and  the  New  York  Democracy 
was  bitter  in  its  denunciations  of  the  "Northern  Abolition 
ists,"  who  now  stood  convicted  of  having  "long  contemplated 
a  war  of  races,"  and  of  having,  as  the  Brown  raid  revealed, 
"slowly  and  deliberately"  plotted  to  that  end.18  Individuals 
of  prominence,  too,  went  on  record  in  those  days,  (tmerson} 
in  his  ignorance  of  Pottawatomie,  had  spoken  of  Brown  be 
fore  his  execution  as  y  that  new  saint,  than  whom  none  purer 
or  more  brave  was  ever  led  by  love  of  men  into  conflict  and 
death,  —  the  new  saint  awaiting  his  martyrdom,  and  who, 
if  he  shall  suffer,  will  make  the  gallows  glorious  like  the 
cross."  Thoreau  felt  similarly.  Longfellow  wrote  in  his  diary 
on  the  day  of  the  hanging:  "This  will  be  a  great  day  in 
our  history;  the  date  of  a  new  Revolution,  —  quite  as  much 
needed  as  the  old  one.  Even  now  as  I  write,  they  are  leading 
old  John  Brown  to  execution  in  Virginia  for  attempting  to 
rescue  slaves!  This  is  sowing  the  wind  to  reap  the  whirlwind, 
which  will  come  soon."  lf) 

r"  George  William  Curtis  felt  that  John  Brown  was  "not 
.  buried  but  planted.   He  will  spring  up  a  hundred-fold.   I  do 


564  JOHN  BROWN 

not  wonder  at  the  solemn  pomp  of  his  death.  They  would 
have  none  but  a  Southern-made  rope  to  hang  him,  but  that 
rope  had  two  ends  —  one  around  the  neck  of  a  man,  the  other 
around  the  system  [of  slavery]."  ^V"  Let  the  American  State 
hang  his  body  and  the  American  Church  damn  his  soul.  Still, 
the  blessing  of  such  as  are  ready  to  perish  will  fall  on  him,  and 
the  universal  justice  of  the  Infinitely  Perfect  God  will  make 
him  welcome  home.  The  road  to  heaven  is  as  short  from 
the  gallows  as  from  the  throne,"  wrote  Theodore  Parker.21 
"The  day  before  yesterday  old  Brown  was  executed,"  wrote 
Francis  Lieber  to  a  friend.  "He  died  like  a  man  and  Virginia 
fretted  like  an  old  woman.  .  .  .  The  deed  was  irrational, 
but  it  will  be  historical.  Virginia  has  come  out  of  it  damaged, 
I  think.  She  has  forced  upon  mankind  the  idea  that  slavery 
must  be,  in  her  own  opinion,  but  a  rickety  thing.  .  .  ."  22 
/  The  politicians,  too,  were  quick  to  give  their  opinions. 
[Abraham  Lincoln,  at  Troy,  Kansas,  on  December  2,  1859, 
remarked:  "Old  John  Brown  has  been  executed  for  treason 
against  a  State.  We  cannot  object,  even  though  he  agreed 
with  us  in  thinking  slavery  wrong.  That  cannot  excuse  vio 
lence,  bloodshed  and  treason.  It  could  avail  him  nothing  that 
lie  might  think  himself  right."  23  On  February  27,  1860, 
speaking  more  at  length  in  Cooper  Union,  he  declared: 

"John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  a  slave  insurrec 
tion.  It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men  to  get  up  a  revolt  among 
slaves,  in  which  the  slaves  refused  to  participate.  In  fact,  it  was  so 
absurd  that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance,  saw  plainly  enough 
it  could  not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its  philosophy,  corresponds  with 
the  many  attempts,  related  in  history,  at  the  assassination  of  kings 
and  emperors.  An  enthusiast  broods  over  the  oppression  of  a  people 
till  he  fancies  himself  commissioned  by  Heaven  to  liberate  them. 
He  ventures  the  attempt,  which  ends  in  little  else  than  his  own 
execution.  Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon,  and  John  Brown's 
attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry  were  in  their  philosophy  precisely  the 


same."  24 


Lincoln's  great  rival  for  the  Republican  nomination  for 
the  Presidency,  William  H.  Seward,  did  not  mince  matters. 
All  good  citizens,  he  said,  would  agree  "that  this  attempt  to 
execute  an  unlawful  purpose  in  Virginia  by  invasion,  involv 
ing  servile  war,  was  an  act  of  sedition  and  treason,  and  crim- 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  565 

inal  in  just  the  extent  that  it  affected  the  public  peace  and 
was  destructive  of  human  happiness  and  life."  But,  besides 
lamenting  the  deaths  of  innocent  citizens,  "slain  from  an 
ambush  and  by  surprise,"  Mr.  Seward  felt  that  the  execu 
tions  of  the  offenders  themselves  might  be  thought  pitiable, 
"although  necessary  and  just,  because  they  acted  under  de 
lirium,  which  blinded  their  judgments  to  the  real  nature 
of  their  criminal  enterprise."  25  In  Massachusetts,  Edward 
Everett  and  Caleb  Gushing  voiced  their  protests  and  painted 
the  horrors  of  servile  insurrections,  in  the  Boston  Union  meet 
ing  of  December  8,  in  which  Gushing  called  attention,  in  vain, 
to  Brown's  blood  guilt  on  the  Pottawatomie.  Public  opinion 
in  the  North  was  in  no  mood  to  believe  ill  of  John  Brown, 
and  even  in  the  South  his  previous  record  made  far  less  im 
pression  than  did  the  manner  of  his  dying.  None  the  less, 
both  Everett  and  Gushing  roundly  denounced  the  lawlessness 
of  the  raid,  and  the  latter  did  not  hesitate  to  insinuate  that 
Phillips,  Garrison,  Parker  and  the  other  anti-slavery  leaders 
were  as  insane  as  Gerrit  Smith. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas,  the  author  of  the  vicious  Kansas- 
Nebraska  act,  but  for  which  there  would  probably  have  been 
no  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry,  who  was  then  nearing  the  prema 
ture  ending  of  his  remarkable  career,  touched  upon  Brown's 
taking  horses  belonging  to  citizens  of  Missouri.  Naturally, 
he  beheld  in  Brown  a  "notorious  man  who  has  recently  suf 
fered  death  for  his  crimes,"  26  and  he  was  glad  to  saddle  upon 
the  Republican  party  the  responsibility  for  those  crimes.  As 
for  the  Southerners  thgmselves,  the  attitude  of  their  leaders 
is  easily  conceivable,  (hi  Jefferson  Davis's  eyes,  John  Brown 
deservedly  "suffered  a  felon's  death,"  for  he  came  "to  incite 
slaves  to  murder  helpless  women  and  children.*' 27  Robert 
Toombs  was  fiery  enough  to  suit  even  Governor  Wise,  for 
in  the  Senate,  in  the  following  January,  he  thus  talked  of 
civil  war: 

"  Never  permit  this  Federal  government  to  pass  into  the  hands  of 
the  black  Republican  party.  It  has  already  declared  war  against 
you  and  your  institutions.  It  every  day  commits  acts  of  war  against 
you :  it  has  already  compelled  you  to  arm  for  your  defence.  .  .  .  De 
fend  yourselves!  The  enemy  is  at  your  door,  wait  not  to  meet  him  at 
your  hearthstone;  meet  him  at  the  doorsill,  and  drive  him  from  the 


566  JOHN  BROWN 

Temple  of  Liberty,  or  pull  down  its  pillars  and  involve  him  in  a 
common  ruin."  28 " 

In  the  course  of  an  excited  debate  in  the  Virginia  House 
of  Delegates,  five  days  after  John  Brown's  death,  General 
James  L.  Kemper,  one  of  the  most  talented  and  influential 
members  of  the  Legislature,  was  almost  as  bloodthirsty: 
"All  Virginia  .  .  .  should  stand  forth  as  one  man  and  say 
to  fanaticism,  in  her  own  language,  whenever  you  advance 
a  hostile  foot  upon  our  soil,  we  will  welcome  you  with  bloody 
hands  and  to  hospitable  graves."  29 

A  similar  vein  was  that  of  a  State  Senator  of  Mississippi, 
Brown  by  name,  to  the  Legislature  of  his  State: 

"  I  have  said  of  Mr.  Seward  and  his  followers,  that  they  are  our 
enemies  and  we  are  theirs.  He  has  declared  that  there  is  an  'irre 
pressible  conflict'  between  us.  So  there  is!  He  and  his  followers 
have  declared  war  upon  us,  and  I  am  for  fighting  it  out  to  the  bitter 
end.  It  is  clear  that  one  or  the  other  must  go  to  the  wall,  and  the 
sooner  the  better."  30 

In  the  view  of  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia: 

"John  Brown's  invasion  was  condemned  [in  the  North]  only  be 
cause  it  failed.  But  in  view  of  the  sympathy  for  him  in  the  North 
and  the  persistent  efforts  of  the  sectional  party  there  to  interfere 
with  the  rights  of  the  South,  it  was  not  at  all  strange  that  the 
Southern  States  should  deem  it  proper  to  arm  themselves  and  pre 
pare  for  any  contingency  that  might  arise."  31 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress,  President  Buchanan 
took  the  unusual  view  that  while  many  feared  that  the  Har 
per's  Ferry  outbreak  was  but  a  symptom  of  an  "incurable 
disease  in  the  public  mind,"  it  was  in  his  opinion  likely  to 
be  altogether  a  blessing  in  its  after  effects.  He  informed  the 
country  of  his  belief  that: 

"  the  events  at  Harper's  Ferry,  by  causing  the  people  to  pause 
and  reflect  upon  the  possible  peril  to  their  cherished  institutions, 
will  be  the  means,  under  Providence,  of  allaying  the  existing  excite 
ment  and  preventing  further  outbreaks  of  a  similar  character.  They 
will  resolve  that  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  shall  not  be  en 
dangered  by  rash  counsels,  knowing  that  should  '  the  silver  cord  be 
loosed  or  the  golden  bowl  be  broken  ...  at  the  fountain,1  human 
power  could  never  reunite  the  scattered  and  hostile  fragments." 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  567 

The  Joint  Committee  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia, 
which  investigated  the  raid,  held  a  different  opinion  when  it 
reported,  on  January  26,  1860;  for  it  felt  that  as  long  as  the 
Republican  party 

"maintains  its  present  sectional  organization,  and  inculcates  its 
present  doctrines,  the  South  can  expect  nothing  less  than  a  succes 
sion  of  such  traitorous  attempts  to  subvert  its  institutions  and  to 
incite  its  slaves  to  rapine  and  murder.  The  crimes  of  John  Brown 
were  neither  more  nor  less  than  practical  illustrations  of  the  doc 
trines  of  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party.  The  very  existence 
of  such  a  party  is  an  offence  to  the  whole  South." 

The  Committee  offered  a  resolution  that  Virginia  should 
put  its  militia  on  a  war-service  basis,  and  then,  without  vio 
lating  the  Federal  Constitution,  achieve  its  commercial  in 
dependence  of  the  North  by  establishing  its  own  manufac 
tures  and  promoting  direct  trade  with  foreign  countries." 
Only  nine  days  earlier,  the  General  Assembly  had  listened 
to  an  address  of  O.  G.  Memminger,  special  commissioner 
from  South  Carolina  to  urge  Virginia  to  join  the  conference 
of  Southern  States  which  South  Carolina  was  calling,  to  con 
sider  and  act  upon  the  grave  situation  created  by  the  "in 
creasing  violence  in  new  and  alarming  forms"  of  the  attacks 
upon  slavery.  "Every  village  bell,"  he  said,  "which  tolled 
its  solemn  note  at  the  execution  of  Brown,  proclaims  to  the 
South  the  approbation  of  that  village  of  insurrection  and 
servile  war."  Harper's  Ferry,  he  declared,  "proved  that  the 
North  and  South  are  standing  in  battle  array."  33  Similar 
sentiments  were  voiced  by  Governor  Gist,  of  South  Carolina, 
in  his  annual  message  to  the  Legislature.  For  him  the  Rubi 
con  had  been  crossed.34 

In  marked  contrast  to  this,  the  utterance  of  one  Northern 
Governor,  Samuel  J.  Kirkwood,  of  Iowa,  may  be  cited  in  this 
connection,  since  it  was  an  accurate  interpretation  of  the 
opinions  of  the  bulk  of  the  plain  people  of  the  Middle  West: 

"I  cannot  wonder  at  the  most  unfortunate  and  bloody  occur 
rence  at  Harper's  Ferry.  But  while  we  may  not  wonder  at  it,  we 
must  condemn  it.  It  was  an  act  of  war  —  of  war  against  brothers, 
and  in  that  a  greater  crime  than  the  invaders  of  Cuba  and  Nicara 
gua  were  guilty  of;  relieved  to  some  extent  of  its  guilt  in  the  minds 
of  many,  by  the  fact  that  the  blow  was  struck  for  freedom,  and  not 


568  JOHN   BROWN 

for  slavery.  .  .  .  While  the  great  mass  of  our  people  utterly  con 
demn  the  act  of  John  Brown,  they  feel  and  they  express  admiration 
and  sympathy  for  the  disinterestedness  of  purpose  by  which  they 
believe  he  was  governed,  and  for  the  unflinching  courage  and  calm 
cheerfulness  with  which  he  met  the  consequences  of  his  failure." 

But  even  this  was  not  allowed  to  pass  uncriticised  by  the 
Democratic  minority  in  the  Iowa  Legislature,  fifty-eight 
members  of  which  voted  that  such  sentiments  were  out  of 
place  in  a  gubernatorial  message,  and  quite  ''demagogic."35 
As  for  the  newspapers,  North  and  South,  they  took  sides 
about  as  they  had  prior  to  the  execution.  Curiously  enough, 
some  in  the  South  turned  on  their  friend  the  New  York  Her 
ald,  because  it  printed  so  many  Abolitionist  speeches  and 
documents,  the  reprinting  of  which,  it  was  felt,  would  do  much 
harm.  A  collapsing  economic  system,  slavery  was  more  than 
ever  afraid  of  free  speech,  as  was  shortly  to  be  shown  by  its 
treatment  of  a  powerful  tract,  'The  Impending  Crisis,'  from 
the  pen  of  Hinton  Rowan  Helper,  a  poor  white  of  Southern 
birth  and  breeding.  Newspapers  like  the  Richmond  Enquirer, 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  Mercury,  and  the  Baltimore 
Patriot,  put  remarkably  little  faith  in  the  action  taken  by  the 
various  Northern  anti-Brown  meetings,  which  they  suspected 
of  being  planned  to  appease  the  South  for  the  moment.  The 
Patriot  believed  that  there  was  no  sincerity  and  a  great  deal 
of  political  time-serving  in  the  resolutions  passed,  favorable 
as  they  were  to  the  South.36  The  Enquirer  was  pleased  with 
j  the  words,  but  demanded  "acts,  acts."  It  sympathized  with 
I  the  remark  of  the  London  Times  that  "the  first  thing  that 
Lstrikes  us  is  that  the  North  did  nothing  until  Brown  was  exe 
cuted,  and  then  it  began  to  talk."37  The  Baltimore  Sun39 
^found  in  the  pro-Brown  outbursts  proof,  hitherto  lacking, 
that  Brown  was  really  a  "representative  man"  of  the  North. 
"That  the  South  can  afford  to  live  under  a  Government, 
the  majority  of  whose  subjects  or  citizens  regard  John  Brown 
as  a  martyr  and  a  Christian  hero,  rather  than  a  murderer  and 
robber,  and  act  up  to  those  sentiments,  or  countenance  others 
in  so  doing,  is  a  preposterous  idea,  as  will  be  comprehended 
by  all  the  North  ere  the  end  of  the  next  session  of  Con 
gress.  ..."  Naturally,  newspapers  of  this  stripe  could  only 
denounce  as  treason  the  editorial  utterance  of  the  Cleveland 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  569' 

Daily  Herald,™  entitled  "Hung  be  the  Heavens  with  Black," 
which  declared  that  "The  gloom  upon  all  hearts  is  too  deep 
for  words.  Slavery  drives  John  Brown  to  madness  and  then 
hangs  him  for  that  insanity.  What  a  spectacle  in  a  Chris 
tian  community!  —  What  a  solemn  day  for  this  Christian 
nation!"  But  they  found  fresh  comfort  in  the  Portage,  Ohio, 
Sentinel,  published  in  John  Brown's  old  home,  which  rejoiced 
in  his  proper  penalty  for  his  many  crimes,  for  "his  whole  life 
.  .  .  has  been  that  of  a  lawbreaker."40  Thus  were  Northern 
communities  of  a  sudden  clearly  cleaved  by  the  actions  of 
twenty-two  men  in  a  Southern  State. 

But  nowhere  were  there  abler  editorials  on  the  Southern^ 
side  than  appeared  in  the  Baltimore  American,  which  sin-  / 
cerely  hoped  that  the  death  of  John  Brown  would  end  the  / 
"confusion,  excitement  and  parade"  among  the  Virginians,/ 
which,  it  felt  bound  to  say,  had  not  "presented  them  in  a  veryj 
favorable  aspect  to  the  country."    Uttering  "a  word  of  cau 
tion  to  those  who  are  inclined  to  attach  importance  to  the 
fact  that  Brown  met  his  fate  with  perfect  calmness,"  the 
American  rightly  declared  that  in  itself  this  proved  nothing. 
"Pirates,"  it  said,  "have  died  as  resolutely  as  martyrs. 
If  the  firmness  displayed  by  John  Brown  proves  anything 
the  composure  of  a  Thug,  dying  by  the  cord  with  which  h< 
had  strangled  so  many  victims,  proves  just  as  much."  41  No1 
unnaturally,  the  Southern  press  absolutely  failed  to  compre 
hend  such  a  point  of  view  as  that  of  Victor  Hugo,  perhaps  thi 
greatest  man  of  letters  in  Europe,  in  whose  far-reaching  opin< 
ion:  "In  killing  Brown,  the  Southern  States  have  committed 
a  crime  which  will  take  its  place  among  the  calamities  of  his 
tory.   The  rupture  of  the  Union  will  fatally  follow  the  assas 


sination  of  Brown.  As  to  John  Brown,  he  was  an  apostle  anc 
a  hero.  The  gibbet  has  only  increased  his  glory  and  made  him 
a  martyr."42  For  his  epitaph  Victor  Hugo  suggested,  "Pro 
Christo  sicut  Christus." 

The  Baltimore  American's  hope,  that  Virginia  might  set 
tle  down  after  John  Brown's  execution,  came  to  naught  as 
long  as  Brown's  followers  were  yet  to  be  disposed  of.  The 
trials  of  Edwin  Coppoc,  Shields  Green,  John  Copeland,  Jr., 
and  John  E.  Cook  followed  in  that  order,  and  by  November 
9  they  were  all  sentenced  to  die  on  December  16,  their  trials 


J 


57<F  JOHN  BROWN 

being  in  all  essentials  repetitions  of  Brown's,  without  the  dra 
matic  features,  George  Sennott,  of  Boston,  making  a  splendid 
legal  fight  for  them.  His  contention  that  a  negro  could  not 
be  convicted  of  treason  in  Virginia  was  agreed  to  by  Andrew 
Hunter  and  the  court,  and  Green  and  Copeland  were  con 
victed  on  the  other  charges.  In  Cook's  behalf,  the  eloquent 
Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  of  Indiana,  later  United  States  Senator 
from  that  State,  made  a  plea  which  is  said  to  have  reduced 
the  court- room  to  tears  —  but  in  vain.43  In  Edwin  Coppoc's 
behalf,  Governor  Wise  appeared  before  the  Senate  and  House 
Committees  for  Courts  of  Justice  in  Richmond,  and  stated 
his  readiness  to  have  Coppoc's  sentence  commuted  to  im 
prisonment  for  life.44  This  action  justly  won  for  the  impul 
sive  and  high-spirited  Governor  not  a  little  praise  from  both 
North  and  South,  and  the  unfortunate  Quaker  youth  might 
possibly  have  escaped  the  scaffold,  had  there  not  most  in 
opportunely  appeared  in  the  New  York  Tribune  a  letter  from 
Coppoc  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  telling  of  the  death  of  Watson 
and  Oliver  Brown,  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  Harper's  Ferrians 
as  "the  enemy."  At  once  the  Senate  Committee  took  sides 
against  Coppoc,  and  the  Governor's  intercession  became  of 
no  avail.  This  might,  however,  have  been  the  case  had  the 
letter  not  appeared,  for  while  it  was  alleged  in  some  quarters 
that  Coppoc  had  shot  no  one,  it  was  clearly  brought  out  be 
fore  the  Senate  Committee  that  his  rifle  was  responsible  for 
Mayor  Beckham's  death.  Coppoc  denied  having  written  the 
letter,  but  it  is  believed  that  he  signed  it  after  it  had  been 
written  for  him  by  Cook.45 

Naturally,  the  friends  of  John  Brown  in  the  North  watched 
the  fate  of  his  associates  with  all  devotion,  hoping  against  hope 
for  the  prisoners'  lives,  and  eager  to  do  anything  to  aid  them. 
The  failure  of  their  efforts  to  rescue  John  Brown  from  death 
on  the  scaffold  only  increased  the  determination  of  his  three 
militant  friends,  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  John  W. 
Le  Barnes  and  Richard  J.  Hinton,  to  cheat  the  Virginia  hang 
man  of  some  of  his  victims.  But  before  they  could  do  else 
than  begin  to  plot,  four  more  raiders,  John  E.  Cook,  Edwin 
Coppoc,  Shields  Green  and  John  Copeland,  Jr.,  were  executed 
on  a  single  day,  December  16.  As  if  to  intensify  the  bitterness 
and  disappointment  of  their  Northern  allies,  Cook  and  Cop- 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  571 

poc  all  but  escaped,  the  night  before  their  deaths.  Despite 
the  watchfulness  of  Andrew  Hunter  and  the  military  com 
manders  in  Charlestown,  one  of  the  men  enrolled  for  service 
in  the  prison  guards  soon  after  the  raid  was  Charles  Len- 
hart,  the  Kansas  Free  State  fighter,  whose  sole  motive  for 
this  service  was  a  desire  to  succor  the  raiders.46  It  was  easy 
for  him  to  get  into  touch  with  them,  and  from  him  Cook  and 
Coppoc  learned  that  on  the  night  of  December  14,  1859,  ne 
would  be  on  duty  at  the  angle  of  the  prison  wall  most  favor 
able  for  an  escape.  They  had  borrowed  a  knife  from  a  prison 
guard  and  "forgotten"  to  return  it;  taken  a  screw  out  of  the 
bedstead,  and  obtained  a  knife-blade  from  Shields  Green. 
With  these  slight  implements  they  had  worked  a  whole  week 
and  made  an  aperture  in  the  wall  which  they  were  able  to 
conceal  during  the  day.  With  the  knife-blade  they  made  teeth 
in  the  knife,  and  with  this  roughly  improvised  saw  cut  off 
their  shackles.  Their  cell  being  on  the  first  floor,  there  was 
a  drop  of  not  over  five  feet  to  the  prison  yard.  Once  there, 
only  a  fifteen-foot  brick  wall  was  between  them  and  free 
dom. 

On  the  appointed  night,  Lenhart  was  on  guard  and  every 
thing  in  readiness.  But  anxiously  as  he  walked  his  post  those 
long  wintry  hours,  not  a  sound  came  to  his  longing  ears  be 
fore  the  arrival  of  his  relief  sent  him  back  to  his  quarters.  A 
fatal  consideration  for  his  brother-in-law,  the  then  Governor 
Willard,  of  Indiana,  and  his  sister  Mrs.  Willard,  who  were 
in  town  to  bid  him  farewell,  but  were  to  leave  the  next  day, 
induced  Cook  to  postpone  the  attempt  lest  the  escape  reflect 
upon  them.47  He  was  generous  enough  to  urge  Coppoc  to  go 
alone,  but  Coppoc  was  not  of  that  stuff.  Not  even  the  thought 
of  his  grief-stricken  Quaker  mother  in  the  quiet  village  of 
Springdale,  to  which  his  brother  Barclay  had  now  safely  re 
turned,  would  induce  him  to  abandon  his  comrade.  On  July 
25  of  the  same  year,  Barclay  Coppoc  had  said  to  his  mother, 
after  getting  a  letter  from  John  Brown:  "We  are  going  to 
start  for  Ohio  to-day."  "Ohio!"  said  his  mother,  "I  believe 
you  are  going  with  old  Brown.  When  you  get  the  halters 
around  your  necks,  will  you  think  of  me?"  48  The  halter  was 
fairly  around  Edwin's  neck  now,  but  nothing  could  induce  him 
to  deprive  Cook  of  his  chance  for  life  by  going  out  alone. 


572  JOHN  BROWN 

On  the  next  night,  Coppoc  removed  his  chains  and  crawled 
out  first,  Cook  following.  To  their  joy  they  found  no  one  in 
the  prison  yard.  Fortunately,  the  timbers  of  the  scaffold  upon 
which  Brown  had  perished,  and  upon  which  they  were  to  die, 
were  still  in  the  yard,  and  gave  them  an  easy  means  of  arriv 
ing  at  the  top  of  the  wall.  Alas  for  their  high  hopes!  A  loyal 
soldier  of  Virginia  stood  where  Lenhart  was  to  have  been, 
and  the  instant  Cook  appeared  upon  the  wall,  the  guard  shot 
at  him.49  Both  men  tried  to  jump  down,  but  the  sentry  threat 
ened  to  bayonet  them  if  they  did,  and  so,  sadly  enough,  they 
walked  back  into  the  jail  and  delivered  themselves  up  to  the 
astonished  Captain  Avis  and  his  guards.  Their  stay  in  their 
cell  thereafter  was  short  —  a  brief  twelve  hours.  At  half- 
past  twelve  of  the  next  day  they  left  it  forever,  calm,  cool 
and  collected,  to  show,  as  did  the  negroes  Green  and  Cope- 
land,  that  Brown's  men  could  die  like  himself,  "with  the  most 
unflinching  firmness,"  as  the  Associated  Press  told  the  story. 

With  these  deaths  there  remained  alive  at  Charlestown  only 
Aaron  Dwight  Stevens  and  Albert  Hazlett,  of  Brown's  little 
band.  The  latter  went  by  the  name  of  William  H.  Harrison, 
the  nom  de  guerre  of  Richard  J.  Hinton,  which  Hazlett  had 
assumed  when  arrested  at  Newville,  Pennsylvania.  Under 
it  he  had  illegally  been  extradited  to  Virginia,  there  being  no 
proof  produced  that  he  had  ever  been  in  that  State,  or  was 
in  any  way  connected  with  the  Harper's  Ferry  raid.  In  jail, 
as  already  told,  his  comrades  refused  to  recognize  him  or  call 
him  else  than  Harrison.  "Hazlett,"  says  Mrs.  Annie  Brown 
Adams,  "was  a  really  good,  kind-hearted  man,  with  little  or 
no  education.  He  had  always  lived  among  the  roughest  kind 
of  people,  and  was  the  least  accustomed  to  polite  living  of 
any  of  them,  but  he  was  brave  and  manly  in  every  respect."  60 
As  for  Stevens,  with  his  superb  physique,  fine  face  and  beau 
tiful  voice,  and  reputation  for  matchless  physical  courage, 
the  young  men  of  Charlestown  thronged  to  see  him,  to  hear 
him  sing,  or  to  talk  of  his  belief  in  spiritualism.  Wromen  easily 
fell  under  the  sway  of  his  charms,  and  a  young  woman  from 
Ohio,  Jennie  Dunbar,  went  to  Richmond  in  vain,  just  before 
his  execution  in  March,  to  beg  for  his  life  of  Governor  Letcher,51 
who  had  succeeded  Governor  Wise  on  January  I,  1860.  No 
one  who  met  Stevens  failed  to  remember  him,  uneducated 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  573 

though  he  was,  and  since  boyhood  an  adventurer.  His  per 
sonality  was  a  special  incentive  to  those  who  plotted  for  his 
release. 

Before  the  hanging  of  Cook  and  Coppoc,  Richard  J.  Hin- 
ton  telegraphed  to  Leavenworth  in  an  endeavor  to  get  hold 
once  more  of  Captain  James  Montgomery,  of  Kansas.  He 
was  restless  on  December  13  that  no  answer  had  come.  "  Count 
me  in  for  one,  Stephens  and  Haslitt  must  be  saved,"  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Higginson  on  that  date,  and  urged  that  something  be 
done  without  regard  to  Montgomery.52  But  Higginson,  know 
ing  Montgomery's  reputation  as  a  Free  State  leader,  insisted 
on  his  coming  East  to  take  the  leadership  in  their  rescue  plan. 
The  two  did  not  meet  personally  until  the  rescuers  had  as 
sembled  at  Harrisburg.  Then  Higginson  was  delighted  with 
the  Kansan,  and  wrote  to  his  wife  on  February  17,  1860,  that 
Montgomery  "is  one  of  the  most  charming  men  I  ever  saw 
.  .  .  and  a  man  to  follow  anywhere.  He  was  at  first  reluctant 
to  come,  but  now  his  soul  is  in  it.  Says  the  obstacles  sound 
much  greater  than  they  are."  53 

The  reason  for  Montgomery's  reluctance  in  coming  was, 
as  he  himself  wrote  to  Higginson  on  February  I,  from  Mound 
City,  Kansas,  "the  strong  possibility  that  my  services  will 
be  needed  nearer  home.  One  of  our  citizens  has  been  shot 
down  and  another  carried  off  by  a  mob  from  Missouri."  Be 
tween  his  duty  to  his  family,  his  duty  to  his  creditors,  and  his 
duty  to  the  cause,  he  had  spent  a  sleepless  night,  and  then 
decided  to  send  some  one  else  East  in  his  place.  Before  this 
letter  was  penned,  Mr.  Higginson  had  started  R.  J.  Hinton 
on  January  n,  1860,  for  Kansas,  to  plead  with  Montgomery 
personally.54  This  Hinton  did  at  Moneka,  early  in  February, 
with  such  success  that  Montgomery  agreed  to  leave  for  the 
East  at  once,  and,  instead  of  mailing  his  letter  of  declination 
to  Mr.  Higginson,  handed  it  to  him  at  Harrisburg.55  It  was 
addressed  to  the  " Rev.  Theo.  Brown,"  and  signed  by  "Henry 
Martin;"  but  when  they  met,  Higginson  was  going  by  the 
name  of  Charles  P.  Carter,  while  Captain  Montgomery  was 
always  referred  to  in  the  letters  that  passed  between  the 
conspirators  as  the  "master  machinist."  56 

Before  they  actually  met  in  Harrisburg,  on  February  16, 
much  preliminary  work  was  done.  Besides  contributing  lib- 


574  JOHN  BROWN 

erally  of  his  own  means,  Higginson  obtained  permission  from 
John  Brown's  widow  to  use  part  of  the  funds  placed  in  his 
hands  for  the  benefit  of  the  Brown  family,  in  his  endeavor 
to  save  Hazlett  and  Stevens.67  The  young  publishers  of  Red- 
path's  hastily  written  and  printed  life  of  Brown,  William  W. 
Thayer  and  Charles  Eldridge,  were  enlisted  in  the  cause  and 
contributed  eight  hundred  dollars,  partly  an  outright  gift, 
partly  as  a  loan,  Thayer  taking  four  hundred  and  thirty-one 
dollars  in  a  bag  to  Harrisburg  and  spending,  en  route,  a  sleep 
less  night  at  the  Astor  House  in  New  York,  lest  he  be  robbed 
by  an  unknown  room-mate.  Wendell  Phillips  promised  one 
hundred  dollars,  and  E.  A.  Brackett,  the  sculptor,  two  hun 
dred  dollars.  Colonel  D.  R.  Anthony,  of  Leavenworth,  con 
tributed  three  hundred  dollars  to  Hinton  and  Montgomery. 
All  in  all,  $1721  were  disbursed  in  the  undertaking,  and  no 
one  regretted  the  expenditure  then  or  at  any  time.58 

Mr.  Higginson  at  once  saw  the  desirability  of  getting  in 
touch  with  those  of  Brown's  men  who  had  escaped  from  Har 
per's  Ferry,  because  of  the  invaluable  knowledge  attained  by 
them  in  their  recent  and  perilous  escape  through  the  moun 
tains.  He  soon  succeeded  in  finding  Charles  Plummer  Tidd, 
then  in  hiding  in  Ohio,  and  learned  from  him  that  he  was 
anxious  to  aid  the  expedition.  But  Tidd  wrote  on  January 
20  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  "to  act  openly  in  the 
Southern  part  of  this  State  [Ohio]  or  in  Virginia.  I  am  too 
well  known,  and  at  this  season  of  the  year  I  think  it  a  great 
undertaking  to  camp  out."  He  would  be  willing  to  go  in  the 
spring,  but  as  it  became  evident  that  Stevens  and  Hazlett 
would  not  be  alive  in  the  spring  unless  rescued,  —  they  were 
both  sentenced  to  death  on  February  14,  1860,  -  -  Tidd  came 
to  Boston  in  February  to  counsel  with  Higginson  and  Thayer 
and  Eldridge.  He  then  again  stated  his  belief  that  the  plan 
of  rescue  conceived  by  Higginson,  of  an  overland  dash  to 
Charlestown  through  the  mountains,  was  impracticable  owing 
to  the  cold.  To  camp  without  fires  was  impossible;  to  camp 
with  them  was  to  court  discovery  and  capture.59 

For  the  moment,  however,  Higginson  refused  to  be  dis 
couraged  by  the  unquestionable  truth  of  this  statement,  and 
continued  his  planning  with  unabated  enthusiasm.  John  W. 
Le  Barnes  had,  meanwhile,  returned  to  New  York  to  reenlist 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  575 

for  the  new  undertaking  the  group  of  German  revolutionists 
of  1848  who  had  expressed  a  willingness  to  join  in  the  effort 
to  save  Brown  from  the  gallows.  It  was  through  the  editor  of 
the  Staats-Zeitung,  Oswald  Ottendorfer,  and  Friedrich  Kapp, 
one  of  the  foremost  of  the  German  refugees,  that  Le  Barnes 
had  got  into  touch  with  this  group  and  obtained  the  adher 
ence  of  their  leader,  Colonel  Richard  Metternich,  who  sub 
sequently  died  in  the  cause  of  freedom  in  the  Union  army. 
Metternich  asserted  that  he  had  a  dozen  or  more  men  ready 
to  go,  and  their  terms  as  to  themselves,  and  their  families  in 
case  of  accident,  were  moderate.  But  doubts  having  arisen 
as  to  the  genuineness  of  their  enthusiasm  in  the  cause,  Hinton 
was  hurried  to  New  York  on  his  return  from  Kansas,  to  see 
each  of  them  personally,—  "to  cinch  the  Teutons,"60  as  Hig- 
ginson  put  it.  Their  willingness  to  start  was  never  actually 
tested.  Le  Barnes  and  Hinton  saw  to  it  that  they  were  armed 
"with  the  tools  necessary,  large  and  small,"  that  is,  rifles 
and  revolvers.  Rockets  and  ammunition  were  also  purchased 
in  New  York,  and  Mr.  Higginson  had  attended  to  the  ob 
taining  of  "tools"  for  the  others  of  the  band,  most  of  which 
were  borrowed  in  Boston.  One  box  of  rifles  was  sent  to  New 
York  in  care  of  Oliver  Johnson,  editor  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Standard,  and  one  box  of  revolvers  to  Le  Barnes,  who  was 
to  bring  them  in  his  trunk  if  summoned  to  Harrisburg;  but 
he  was  urged  to  be  careful  of  them,  as  they  were  to  be  "re 
turned  if  not  wanted."  6l 

There  was  no  difficulty  in  getting  men  together  in  Kansas 
under  Montgomery's  leadership,  and  no  question  as  to  their 
loyalty  and  enthusiasm,  with  or  without  pay.  Naturally,  the 
men  who  had  safely  delivered  Dr.  John  Doy  from  the  St. 
Joseph,  Missouri,  jail  were  the  first  thought  of.  Silas  Soule", 
Joseph  Gardner,  J.  A.  Pike  and  S.  J.  Willis  were  selected 
from  their  number. 62  Willis,  being  in  Troy,  New  York,  first 
heard  of  the  undertaking  through  a  letter  from  Hinton.  He 
at  once  wrote  to  Higginson,  in  the  spirit  characteristic  of  all 
the  Kansans,  "I  am  now  on  call,"  and  assured  him  that  the 
entering  of  Missouri's  strongest  prison  and  taking  therefrom 
his  friend  and  neighbor  Dr.  Doy  "are  among  the  most  pleasing 
incidents  of  a  somewhat  eventful  life."  From  Linn  County 
came  John  Brown's  close  friend,  Augustus  Wattles,  together 


576  JOHN  BROWN 

with  Henry  Carpenter  and  Henry  C.  Seaman.  Henry  Sea 
man's  brother  Benjamin  was  summoned  from  his  home  in 
Iowa,  and  Benjamin  Rice  from  Bourbon  County,  Kansas. 
Augustus  Wattles  went  on  ahead.63 

Captain  Montgomery,  signing  himself  "  Henry  Martin,"  tel 
egraphed  to  Mr.  Higginson  from  Leavenworth,  on  February 
10,  1860,  "I  have  got  eight  machines.  Leave  St.  Joseph  thir 
teenth,"  "  machines"  being  the  code  word  for  "  men."  64  Curi 
ously  enough,  at  that  moment  Mr.  Higginson  seems  to  have 
felt  that  the  proper  time  for  the  venture  had  passed.  Accord 
ing  to  his  own  memorandum  on  the  telegram,  he  answered, 
"Too  late  —  send  back  machines  and  come  here  yourself. 
T.  B.  [Theodore  Brown]."  But  the  answer  cannot  have 
reached  Montgomery,  for  five  days  later,  a  telegram  from 
J.  H.  Reed  [Hinton]  in  Pittsburg  announced  the  arrival  there 
of  "  eight  machines  awaiting  transfer."  65  After  two  days 
more,  the  "machines "  were  safely  transferred  to  Harrisburg  in 
the  guise  of  cattlemen  looking  for  bargains.  Those  from  Linn 
County  had  had  a  thrilling  adventure  in  crossing  the  Mis 
souri  River  to  St.  Joseph  at  night,  in  an  overloaded  skiff,  but 
experienced  no  difficulty  in  passing  through  that  Southern 
city.  The  three  Doy  rescuers,  Gardner,  Pike  and  Soule,  nat 
urally  gave  St.  Joseph  a  wide  berth,  and  the  two  parties  do 
not  seem  to  have  met  until  Pittsburg  was  reached.66  The 
eight  "machines"  reported  there  could  only  have  been  Mont 
gomery,  Rice,  Pike,  Gardner,  Soule,  Carpenter  and  the  two 
Seamans,  for  Wattles  had  gone  ahead,  and  Willis  was  still  in 
Troy. 

At  Harrisburg,  Montgomery  speedily  found  Higginson,  who 
had  taken  up  his  abode  with  Dr.  William  W.  Rutherford,  an 
Abolitionist  and  a  "tower  of  strength,"  and  probably  the 
only  man  in  Harrisburg  who  was  entrusted  with  the  secret.67 
The  problem  which  confronted  Montgomery  and  Higginson, 
as  they  sat  down  to  it  in  the  Doctor's  parlor,  Higginson  put  on 
a  bit  of  paper  he  has  carefully  preserved.  It  reads  as  follows : 68 

This  is  what  involved  - 

I.  Traverse  a  mountainous  country  miles  at  10  miles  a  night, 
carrying  arms  ammunition  &  blankets  &  provisions  for  a  week  — 
with  certain  necessity  of  turning  round  and  retreating  the  instant 
of  discovery,  &  of  such  discovery  causing  death  to  our  friends:  and 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  577 

this  in  a  country  daily  traversed  by  hunters.  Also  the  certainty  of 
retreat  or  detection  in  case  of  a  tracking  snow  wh.  may  come  any 
time.  Being  out  5  nights  at  mildest,  possibly  10.  Includ'g  crossing 
Potomac,  a  rapid  stream  where  there  may  be  no  ford  or  boats. 

2.  Charge  on  a  build'g  defended  by  2  sentinels  outside  &  25 
men  inside  a  wall  14  ft.  high.    Several  men  inside  prison  besides,  & 
a  determined  jailer.    Certainty  of  rousing  town  &  impossibility  of 
having  more  than  15  men. 

3.  Retreat  with  prisoners  &  wounded  probably  after  daylight  — 
&  No.  I.  repeated. 

T.  W.  HIGGINSON. 

Montgomery,  as  Higginson  at  once  reported  to  his  wife  and 
to  Le  Barnes  on  the  same  day,  February  17,  was  not  dismayed 
by  this  apparently  hopeless  and  impossible  undertaking,  but 
insisted  that  he  must  first  scout  over  the  country  by  himself. 
For  that  purpose  he  needed  a  whole  week,  for  he  must  take 
his  time  and  do  it  thoroughly.  "He  [Montgomery],"  wrote 
the  Worcester  clergyman,  "has  excellent  suggestions  which  I 
cannot  give  —  if  undertaken  at  all  it  can  be  done  at  one  dash, 
not  taking  long.  But  he  says  &  I  agree  that  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  introduce  the  machinery  would  re-act  very  un 
favorably  and  nothing  must  be  done  without  a  fair  prospect 
of  success."  69 

Bad  luck  pursued  the  conspirators  from  the  beginning. 
Tidd  was  to  arrive  from  Massachusetts  that  (Friday)  night, 
but  was  compelled  to  postpone  his  coming  until  the  following 
Monday  or  Tuesday.  Before  their  arrival,  the  heavens  proved 
in  league  with  their  enemies,  for  a  heavy  fall  of  snow  made 
their  hearts  sick  as  they  gazed  upon  it  on  reaching  Harris- 
burg.  The  next  day  it  again  snowed  heavily,  "further  depress 
ing  the  hopes  of  our  machinist,"  as  Higginson  reported.70 
He  himself  left  on  Monday  for  Chicago,  to  do  some  lectur 
ing  there  and  at  Yellow  Springs,71  returning  just  in  time  to 
receive  Montgomery's  report  of  a  daring  venture  he  had 
made. 

True  to  his  Kansas  reputation,  he  had  gone  with  but  one 
comrade,  Soule,  straight  to  the  portals  of  Charlestown,  risking 
not  only  the  elements,  but  discovery  at  the  hands  of  the  Vir 
ginia  patrols,  with  which  the  roads  teemed.  He  travelled 
openly,  and  relied,  with  success,  upon  that  Southern  accent 
which  was  his  by  right  of  his  Kentucky  birth  and  ancestry. 


578  JOHN  BROWN 

Soule*  played  the  jovial  Irishman  to  perfection,  and,  leaving 
Montgomery,  entered  Charlestown  apparently  in  such  a 
state  of  intoxication,  that  to  his  unutterable  delight,  he  was 
speedily  locked  up  in  the  very  jail  with  the  men  he  had  come 
to  rescue.  He  as  skilfully  obtained  an  interview  with  Stevens 
and  Hazlett,  and  informed  them  of  the  undertaking  on  hand. 
Deeply  moved,  both  declared  a  rescue  impossible,  for  if  most 
of  the  troops  had  left,  and  civil  rule  had  been  established  after 
the  executions  of  December  16,  there  was  still  a  constant  guard 
of  eighty  men.  Troops  were,  moreover,  on  call  in  all  the  sur 
rounding  towns  and  could  arrive  in  two  or  three  hours.  The 
loss  of  life  would  certainly  be  heavy.  Their  kind  jailer,  Cap 
tain  Avis,  they  knew  would  fight  to  the  last.  They  did  not 
wish  liberty  at  the  cost  of  his  life  and  those  of  some  of  the 
rescuers.  Hazlett  sent  personal  messages  of  farewell  to  Hinton 
before  the  interview  concluded.  Soul£  was  then  haled  before 
a  justice  of  the  peace,  listened  gravely  enough  to  a  lecture 
on  the  evils  of  intemperance,  and  doubtless  on  the  especial 
danger  of  getting  drunk  in  a  town  under  semi-military  con 
trol.  Discharged,  he  promptly  made  his  way  back  to  Harris- 
burg.72 

There,  too,  came  Montgomery  and  also  Gardner,  who, 
being  of  Pennsylvania-Dutch  birth,  had  been  allowed  to  try 
the  "underground"  Quaker  routes,  with  but  ill  success;  for, 
according  to  Hinton,  he  was  threatened  with  exposure  by 
some  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  his  secret,  and  compelled  to 
return.73  It  was  perhaps  owing  to  Gardner's  indiscretions 
that  Governor  Letcher  again  got  word  that  there  was  a  con 
spiracy  afoot,  but  warnings  had  already  been  given  him.  For, 
on  January  26,  he  wrote  to  Andrew  Hunter: 

"If  from  fhe  information  you  receive,  you  shall  be  satisfied  that  a 
rescue  will  be  attempted,  inform  me  at  once,  either  by  telegraph  or 
otherwise.  I  have  made  my  arrangements  to  have  all  the  necessary 
troops  upon  the  grounds  at  the  earliest  practicable  moment  —  and 
in  a  very  few  hours,  after  I  shall  be  notified  that  they  are  required." 7* 

In  the  second-rate  Drover's  Tavern  in  Harrisburg,  in  which 
the  comrades  of  Montgomery,  Soule  and  Gardner  had  awaited 
their  return,  a  council  of  war  was  held.  Soule  made  his  report 
of  Stevens's  and  Hazlett's  wishes.  Mr.  Higginson  declares 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  579 

that  he  never  knew  what  effect,  if  any,  this  attitude  of  the 
prisoners  had  upon  Montgomery's  mind.76  That  he  had  al 
ready  made  it  up  was  speedily  clear.  He  had  found  the  entire 
countryside  between  Charlestown  and  Harrisburg  on  the 
alert,  and  easily  discovered  that  the  pretence  of  a  hunting- 
party  would  not  hold  good  at  that  time  of  year.  Finally,  the 
continuing  heavy  snows  made  rapid  movements  impossible, 
and  great  suffering  certain.  The  elements  were  the  deciding 
factors,  and  Montgomery  reluctantly  submitted  to  their 
decree.  Higginson,  who  presided  at  the  conference,  asserts 
that  he  consented  reluctantly  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
enterprise  upon  which  he  had  built  high  hopes.  Thayer's 
recollection,  thirty- three  years  after,  was  that  the  clergyman's 
eloquent  insistence  that  fifteen  or  twenty  lives  ought  not  to 
be  sacrificed  in  a  hopeless  attempt  to  save  one  or  two,  carried 
the  day.76  Certain  it  is  that  the  other  Kansans  gave  up  the 
expedition  with  the  greatest  reluctance.  They  had  come  East 
to  die,  if  need  be,  in  order  to  rescue  their  comrades  of  Free 
State  days.  But  their  readiness  to  sacrifice  themselves  was  in 
vain.  Montgomery  remained  firm,  and  the  opposition  of  their 
chosen  leader  could  not  be  disregarded.  To  the  great  disap 
pointment  of  Hinton  and  Le  Barnes,  who  were  still  in  New 
York  with  Metternich  and  his  Teutons,  awaiting  the  word, 
Stevens  and  Hazlett  were  now  left  to  their  fate.  The  twenty- 
one  men  who  were  ready  to  take  their  lives  in  their  hands  and 
go  —  one  less  in  number  than  the  men  who  went  to  Kennedy 
Farm  —  dispersed  to  their  homes  or  took  up  their  normal 
occupations.  Most  of  the  Kansans  returned  direct  to  their 
Territory. 

Lest  it  be  thought  that  these  men  were  not  of  the  fighting 
blood  that  is  willing  to  risk  all  against  great  odds,  it  must  be 
recorded  that  the  majority  took  up  arms  as  soon  as  the  Union 
was  openly  attacked.  Higginson  became  colonel  of  the  First 
South  Carolina,  the  first  regiment  of  blacks  raised  for  the 
Union  army,  while  Montgomery's  military  record  as  colonel 
of  three  regiments  has  already  been  given.  Le  Barnes  was  a 
lieutenant  in  a  German  company  of  the  Second  Massachusetts, 
while  Tidd  died  as  Sergeant  Charles  Plummer  of  the  Twenty- 
first  Massachusetts,  and  Colonel  Metternich  is  known  to  have 
fallen  for  the  Union  in  Texas.  Hinton  became  a  captain  in 


580  JOHN  BROWN 

the  Second  Kansas  Colored  Volunteers,  and  H.  C.  Seaman, 
Gardner,  Pike,  Rice  and  Willis  served  in  various  capacities 
from  sergeant  to  captain,  the  first  three  being  of  the  latter 
rank  in  Kansas  regiments  at  the  expiration  of  their  service.77 
The  willingness  of  the  party  to  risk  death  was  well  proved. 
Higginson  in  after  years  went  over  the  ground  between  Har- 
risburg  and  Charlestown  only  to  convince  himself  that  the 
decision  reached  by  Montgomery  was  the  proper  one.  An 
attempt  would  have  failed  utterly.  While  ready  at  that  time 
to  risk  all,  it  is  plain  that  Higginson  realized  how  desperate 
the  undertaking  was  to  be;  for  once,  when  it  appeared  that 
the  Germans  might  not  materialize,  he  wrote  to  his  wife  that 
this  meant  "another  chance  on  your  side,"  -  that  is,  another 
faint  prospect  that  he  might  return  to  her  alive.  When  this 
fiery  apostle  of  liberty  finally  reached  his  home  safe  and 
sound,  his  first  entry  in  his  note-book  after  getting  to  WTorces- 
ter  on  March  I,  1860,  was  the  famous  message  in  Dickens's 
'A  Tale  of  Two  Cities'  -''Recalled  to  Life."78  Fifteen 
days  later,  Stevens  and  Hazlett  perished  on  the  scaffold; 
Stevens  certain  of  a  return  to  earth  in  spirit  form,  while  Haz 
lett,  rejoicing  in  the  news  that  his  body  was  to  be  "taken 
from  this  land  of  chains,"  added,  "my  death  will  do  more 
than  if  I  had  lived."79 

To  add  to  the  political  excitement  of  the  winter  of  1859- 
60,  and  to  keep  John  Brown  before  the  public,  two  events 
contributed  besides  the  trials  and  executions  in  Charlestown. 
These  were  the  meetings  of  the  Mason  Investigating  Commit 
tee  of  the  United  States  Senate,  to  which  references  have 
already  been  made,  and  the  contest  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  over  the  Speakership.  The  Mason  Committee's 
sessions  began  on  December  16,  1859,  and  ended  on  June  14, 
1860.  The  next  day,  Senator  Mason  presented  a  majority  re 
port  signed  by  himself,  Senator  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi, 
and  Senator  G.  N.  Fitch,  of  Indiana.  The  minority  of  the 
committee,  Senators  Jacob  Collamer,  of  Vermont,  and  James 
R.  Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin,  also  presented  a  short  report.  In  it 
the  minority  expressed  no  sympathy  with  John  Brown  or  his 
purpose;  indeed,  their  chief  effort  seemed  to  be  to  offset  any 
political  effect  the  majority  report  might  have  in  connecting 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  581 

Northern  Abolitionists  or  prominent  Republicans  with  John 
Brown  and  his  men.  Hence  they  reached  the  extraordinary 
conclusion  that  there  was  no  evidence  that  any  other  citizens 
than  those  at  Harper's  Ferry  were  accessory  to  the  outbreak, 
or  had  "any  suspicion  of  its  existence  or  design"  before  the 
explosion.  They  also  recorded  their  belief  that  no  evidence 
was  presented  of  any  conspiracy  or  design,  by  any  one,  to 
rescue  John  Brown  and  his  associates  from  prison.  The  raid 
the  minority  believed  to  be  "but  an  offshoot  from  the  exten 
sive  outrages  and  lawlessness  in  Kansas."  It  was  astonishing 
to  them  that,  "in  a  country  like  ours  .  .  .  there  should  still 
be  found  large  bodies  of  men  laboring  under  the  infatuation 
that  any  good  object  can  be  effected  by  lawlessness  and  vio 
lence.  ...  It  can,  in  its  nature,  beget  nothing  but  resistance, 
retaliation,  insecurity  and  disaster."  Said  Messrs.  Collamer 
and  Doolittle:  "Ages  might  not  produce  another  John  Brown, 
or  so  fortuitously  supply  him  with  such  materials."  The  fatal 
termination  of  the  raid  had,  they  thought,  furnished  "assur 
ance  against  the  most  distant  possibility  of  its  repetition," 
and  they  inveighed  against  the  example  of  lawlessness  fur 
nished  by  the  slave-power  in  its  aggressions  on  neighboring 
nations,  the  armed  invasions  of  Kansas,  and  the  "  merciless 
breaches  of  our  laws  against  the  African  slave  trade,  '  unwhipt 
of  justice.'" 

As  for  the  majority  report,  viewed  after  fifty  years,  it  is 
disappointingly  ineffective  from  the  slavery  point  of  view, 
when  it  is  considered  that  such  able  men  as  Jefferson  Davis 
and  J.  M.  Mason  constructed  it.  Their  narrative  of  what 
happened  at  Harper's  Ferry  is  succinct  and  accurate,  and 
tells  the  facts  without  any  attempt  at  coloring.  As  for  their 
opinions,  the  majority  dwelt  upon  Brown's  desire  to  "incite 
insurrection"  among  the  slaves,  and  declared  that  "it  was 
owing  alone  to  the  loyalty  and  well-affected  disposition  of 
the  slaves  that  he  did  not  succeed  in  creating  a  servile  war, 
with  its  necessary  attendants  of  rapine  and  murder  of  all  sexes, 
ages  and  conditions."  The  Committee,  being  "not  disposed 
to  draw  harsh,  or  perhaps  uncharitable  conclusions,"  com 
mented  severely  on  the  way  Kansas  arms  were  turned  over 
to  Brown  after  they  had  been  denied  to  him  by  the  Kansas 
National  Committee.  "The  expedition,  so  atrocious  in  its 


582  JOHN  BROWN 

character,  would  have  been  arrested,  had  even  ordinary  care 
been  taken  on  the  part  of  the  Massachusetts  Committee  to 
ascertain  whether  Brown  was  truthful  in  his  professions." 
The  report  contains  next  a  severe  attack  upon  Congress 
man  Giddings  for  his  doctrine  of  a  "  higher  law,"  the  law  of 
nature,  which,  superior  to  any  statute  law,  gave  to  each  soul 
the  right  to  live,  to  enjoy  happiness,  and  to  be  free.  Quoting 
also  from  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Howe  and  Mr.  Stearns,  the 
majority  of  the  Committee  felt  that  "with  such  elements  at 
work,  unchecked  by  law  and  not  rebuked  but  encouraged  by 
public  opinion,  with  money  freely  contributed  and  placed  in 
irresponsible  hands,  it  may  easily  be  seen  how  this  expedi 
tion  to  excite  servile  war  in  one  of  the  States  of  the  Union 
was  got  up,  and  it  may  equally  be  seen  how  like  expeditions 
may  certainly  be  anticipated  in  future  wherever  desperadoes 
offer  themselves  to  carry  them  into  execution."  The  majority 
report  admitted  that  John  Brown's  reticence  was  such  that 
"it  does  not  appear  that  he  intrusted  even  his  immediate 
followers  with  his  plans,  fully,  even  after  they  were  ripe  for 
execution." 

Finally,  Messrs.  Davis,  Mason  and  Fitch  could  suggest  no 
legislation  which  would  be  adequate  to  prevent  like  occur 
rences  in  the  future.  The  invasion  to  them  "was  simply  the 
act  of  lawless  ruffians  under  the  sanction  of  no  public  or 
political  authority,"  with  the  aid  of  money  and  firearms  con 
tributed  by  citizens  of  other  States  "under  circumstances 
that  must  continue  to  jeopard  the  safety  and  peace  of  the 
Southern  States,  and  against  which  Congress  has  no  power 
to  legislate."  If  the  several  States  would  not,  for  the  sake  of 
policy  or  a  desire  for  peace,  guard  by  legislation  against  the 
raid's  recurrence,  the  Committee  could  "find  no  guarantee 
elsewhere  for  the  security  of  peace  between  the  States  of  the 
Union."  Its  only  definite  recommendation  was  that  mili 
tary  guards  be  kept  at  armories  and  arsenals.  It  reported 
that  four  persons,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  James  Redpath,  Frank 
B.  Sanborn  and  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  having  failed  to  appear 
before  the  Committee,  warrants  had  been  issued  for  their 
arrest.  Of  these,  Mr.  Hyatt  alone  was  taken  into  custody. 
He  languished  for  three  months  in  the  jail  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  refusing  to  testify  for  the  sake  of  the  principle 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  583 

involved,  and  was  finally  released  by  the  Senate  on  June  16, 
i860,80  the  day  that  Senator  Mason  laid  the  findings  of  his 
Committee  before  the  Senate. 

The  two  reports  attracted  little  attention  when  finally 
printed,  for  by  that  time  the  excitement  engendered  by  the 
raid  and  the  contest  between  North  and  South  over  the 
Speakership  had  burned  itself  out.  The  actual  findings  were 
so  mild  and  had  been  so  thoroughly  discounted,  and  the 
progress  of  political  events  had  gone  so  far  beyond  the  raid, 
that  this  final  story  of  it,  valuable  as  were  and  are  the  testi 
monies  that  accompanied  the  reports,  became  merely  one  of 
the  many  events  now  rapidly  leading  up  to  the  secession  of 
the  Southern  States.  The  Liberator  noticed  the  reports  only 
to  say  that  the  Mason  Committee  mountain  had  labored  and 
brought  forth  a  mouse.81  The  Herald,  like  many  other  news 
papers,  did  not  deem  them  worthy  of  editorial  comment. 
This  did  not  mean,  however,  that  John  Brown  was  already 
forgotten.  His  name  appeared  constantly  in  the  press  all 
through  the  year  1860;  the  raising  of  a  fund  for  his  family 
and  the  surviving  raiders,  the  publication  of  the  first  bio 
graphy  of  him  by  James  Redpath,  the  reunion  of  his  family 
and  friends  at  the  grave  at  North  Elba  on  July  4,  1860,  —  all 
these  attracted  attention  to  the  victim  of  the  Charlestown 
gallows,  and  to  his  men. 

In  the  Speakership  fight  in  Congress  —  dramatic  in  the 
extreme  --  John  Brown's  name  was  often  mentioned  and  his 
acts  denounced  by  the  representatives  of  the  South  and  many 
from  the  North.  This  contest  lasted  from  the  Monday  fol 
lowing  John  Brown's  execution,  December  5,  to  February  i.82 
The  election  would  undoubtedly  have  gone  to  John  Sherman, 
of  Ohio,  had  it  not  appeared  that  he  had  endorsed  Hinton 
Rowan  Helper's  book,  'The  Impending  Crisis  of  the  South: 
How  to  Meet  it,'  which  had  infuriated  the  South  about  as 
much  as  'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,' -- if  anything  more  so,  for 
Helper  was  a  North  Carolina  poor  white,  who  wrote  with  all 
the  intensity  of  feeling  of  his  class,  for  whom  the  aristocratic 
system  of  slavery  held  out  hopes  of  nothing  but  a  steady 
degeneration,  materially  and  socially.  Helper  was  no  friend 
to  the  slave,  but  he  demanded  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the 
expulsion  of  the  negroes,  and  the  destruction  of  the  oligar- 


584  JOHN    BROWN 

chical  despotism  which  slavery  had  made  possible.  The  argu 
ments  voiced  against  his  book  were  chiefly  abuse  of  the  writer, 
rather  than  an  attempt  to  controvert  his  facts  and  statistics, 
which  were,  indeed,  unanswerable.  But  Mr.  Sherman's  en 
dorsement  of  Helper's  book,  and  John  Brown's  raid  and  death, 
had  brought  Congressmen's  passions  to  the  boiling  point,  and 
there  was  a  tremendous  outburst  of  feeling.  Personal  alterca 
tions  and  bitter  disputes  were  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  two 
members  were  arrested  and  placed  under  heavy  bonds  to  keep 
the  peace.  Men  freed  their  minds  on  the  whole  slavery  ques 
tion  in  a  debate  that  did  much  to  help  on  the  work  of  popular 
education  John  Brown  had  so  stimulated.  Speaking  of  the 
vote  in  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  on  the  motion  to  ad 
journ  out  of  sympathy  for  John  Brown's  death,  Senator  Iver- 
son  declared  that  Southerners  "  stand  on  the  brink  of  a  vol 
cano,"  and  that  the  Republican  disclaimers  of  responsibility 
for  Brown's  raid  were  "not  worth  the  paper  on  which  they 
are  printed."83  "Do  you  suppose  that  we  intend  to  bow  our 
necks  to  the  yoke;  that  we  intend  to  submit  to  the  domina 
tion  of  our  enemies?"  asked  Senator  C.  C.  Clay,  of  Alabama; 
"that  we  intend  to  sit  here  as  hostages  for  the  good  behavior 
of  our  conquered  people  —  a  people  under  your  Republican 
administration  not  sovereigns  but  subjects?"84  Besides  the 
Southern  leaders  who  were  eager  for  a  break-up  of  the  Union, 
a  number  of  Southern  representatives  for  the  first  time  talked 
secession,  and  they  found  themselves  heartily  applauded 
and  supported  by  many  influential  newspapers,  which  ac 
claimed  also  the  message  sent  to  the  Legislature  by  Governor 
Perry,  of  Florida.85  In  this  he  said: 

"What  else  then  have  we  to  expect  while  the  Union  continues, 
but  the  repetition,  no  one  can  say  when,  where,  how  often,  or  with 
what  bloody  issues,  of  attempts  like  that  lately  thwarted  in  Virginia? 
Florida  as  the  youngest  and  least  populous  of  the  Southern  Sover 
eignties,  can  only  follow  in  action  the  lead  of  her  sisters.  ...  I 
believe  that  her  voice  should  be  heard  in  '  tones  not  loud  but  deep,' 
in  favor  of  an  eternal  separation  from  those  whose  wickedness  and 
fanaticism  forbid  us  longer  to  live  with  them  in  peace  and  safety." 

For  months  it  was  impossible  to  supply  the  demand  for 
Helper's  book,  even  though  it  was  forbidden  in  the  South,  - 
the  latter  fact  a  notice  that  its  cherished  economic  condi- 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  585 

tions  must  not  be  subjected  to  criticism  or  debate.  Men 
were  even  imprisoned  for  circulating  it,  as  if  its  falsehoods 
—  if  such  they  were  —  would  not  render  it  innocuous ;  and 
the  North  retorted  that  the  South  dared  not  let  the  truth 
spread  abroad.  Not  even  Sherman's  explanation  that  he  had 
endorsed  the  book  by  proxy,  without  reading  it,  could  save 
him.  He  was  finally  defeated,  and  Pennington,  of  New  Jer 
sey,  chosen  in  his  stead.  The  Union  meetings  in  the  North, 
engineered  generally  by  well-to-do  merchants  and  others  who 
had  a  pecuniary  interest  in  peace  and  pacific  trade  with  the 
South,  added  to  the  general  feeling  that  the  country  was  in 
the  throes  of  a  great  crisis.  Late  in  April  came  the  Charles 
ton  convention  of  the  Democrats,  with  the  resultant  split 
ting  up  of  the  party  along  Southern  and  Northern  lines,  and 
adjournment  without  nominations  to  Baltimore  on  June  18. 
Then  Douglas  was  chosen  by  the  Northern  faction  to  run 
against  Lincoln,  who  had  meanwhile  been  nominated  by  the 
Republicans. 

There  was  but  one  issue  in  the  campaign,  and  that  was 
slavery  and  the  future  attitude  of  the  Federal  Government 
toward  it.  Within  a  trifle  over  six  months  after  John  Brown's 
death,  the  nation  was  practically  divided  into  two  camps, 
though  hundreds  of  thousands  did  not  realize  how  far  the 
contest  had  gone,  and  hoped  and  believed  like  Lincoln  thafT 
even  if  he  were  elected,  some  way  might  be  found  of  avoiding 
the  "irrepressible  conflict"  and  averting  a  national  disaster. 
But  all  through  the  campaign,  threats  of  disruption  were  rife; 
South  Carolina  let  the  world  know  that  she  was  ready  to  leave 
the  Union  if  the  Republican  party  should  be  victorious.  On 
November  6,  1860,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  chosen  President 
of  the  United  States.  On  July  18,  1861,  eight  months  later, 
Colonel  Fletcher  Webster's  regiment,  the  Twelfth  Massa 
chusetts,  marched  through  the  streets  of  Boston  singing  the 
John  Brown  song,  which  four  of  its  members  had  just  im 
provised.86  Its  men,  too,  were  bound  to  Virginia  with  arms  in 
their  hands,  but  their  movements,  in  contrast  to  John  Brown's, 
were  open  and  above  board;  they  marched  under  the  laws 
of  war,  duly  commissioned  by  their  government  and  known 
of  all  men.  Theirs,  too,  were  the  cheers  and  plaudits  of  the 
crowds  as  they  sang  their  great  song  through  the  streets 


586  JOHN   BROWN 

of  Boston  and  New  York,  until  in  Baltimore  they  chanted  it 
with  grim  defiance  of  the  silent  hostility  on  every  side. 

Now,  fifty  years  later,  it  is  possible  to  take  an  unbiased 
view  of  John  Brown  and  his  achievements,  even  if  opinions 
as  to  his  true  character  and  moral  worth  diverge  almost  as 
violently  as  in  1859.  There  are  those  in  the  twentieth  century, 
appointed  to  teach  historylR  high  places,  who  afe"so'151indjas 
Jo  see  in  John  Brown  only  the  murderer  of  the  Pottawatomie, 
a.  *' horse- thiet  and  midnight  assassin."  Still  others  behold  in 
jmnjiot  merely  a  sainted  martyr  oT  the  most  elevated  char 
acter,  but  the  liberator  oi  Kansas,  and  the  man  who,  unaided, 
struck  their  chains  from  the  limbs  of  more  than  three  million 
human  beings.  These  writers  would  leave  nothing  to""Be 
credited  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  nothing  to  the  devoted  band 
of  uncompromising  Abolitionists  who,  for  thirty  years  prior 
to  Harper's  Ferry,  had  gone  up  and  down  the  North  denounc 
ing  slavery  in  its  every  form,  stirring  the  public  conscience 
and  preparing  the  popular  mind  for  what  was  to  come, 
truth  lies_between_  these  two  extremes.  Were  men  who 
powerfully  moulded  their  time  to  be  judged  solely  by 
errors^  however  grievous,  all  history  would  wea7^~different 
aspect.  In  Virginia.  John  Brown  atoned  for  Pottawatomie 
by  tfie  nobility  of  his  philosophy  and  his  sublime  devotion  to 
principle,  even  to  the  gallowsT  As4TJgxorable  a  tatejisjsyer 
Tipminated  a  Greek  tragedy  guided  this  life.  He  walked  al 
ways  as  one  blindfolded.  Something  compelled  him  to  attack 
slavery  by  force  of  arms,  and  to  that  impulse  he  yielded, 
reckoning  not  at  all  as  to  the  outcome,  and  making  not  the 
slightest  effort  to  plan  beyond  the  first  blow.  Without  fore 
sight,  strategy  or  generalship,  he  entered  the  Harper's  Ferry 
trap  confident  that  all  was  for  the  best,  to  be  marvellously 
preserved  from  the  sabre  which,  had  it  gone  home,  must  have 
rendered  barren  his  entire  life,  his  sacrifice  and  his  devotion. 

When  Brown  assailed  slavery  in  Virginia,  the  outlook  for 
Abolition  was  never  so  hopeful.  The  ' '  irrepressible  conflict " 
wa.s- never^so  irrepressible,  and  he  who  believes  there  would 
have  been  no  forcible  abolition  of  slaveryliad  there  been  no' 
John  Brown,  is  singularly  short-sighted.  The  ^nijth_jw3&  nn 
the  brink  of  a  volcano  the  day  before  tR%  blow  at  Harper's 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  587 

Ferry,  as  it  was  the  day  after,  because  slavery  was  intolerable 
rnoraTI     and  economicall.    It  was  hounr|  to  b 


Because,  in  the  long  run,  truth  and  righteousness  prevail. 
Helper's  book  was  written  before  John  Brown  struck,  and  the 
facts  it  contained,  as  to  the  social  and  economic  injury  to  the 
South  from  its  system  of  unpaid  labor,  lost  and  gained  nothing 
by  the  bloodshed  at  the  Harper's  Ferry  arsenal  or  the  deaths 
on  the  Charlestown  scaffold.  The  secession  movement  was  too- 
far  under  way  for  any  peaceable  solution;  the  minds  of  too 
many  Southern  leaders  besides  Governor  Wise  were  thor 
oughly  committed  to  it  even  before  the  raid.  "The  truth 
is,'.'  wrote  Alexander  Stephens  on  November  30,  1860,  "our 
leaders  and  public  men  ...  do  not  desire  to  continue  it  [the 
Union]  on  any  terms.  They  do  not  wish  any  redress  of  wrongs, 
they  are  disunionists  per  se  and  avail  themselves  of  present 
circumstances  to  press  their  object."  87  This  feeling  and  that 
sense  of  personal  hostility  which,  as  Senator  Iverson  remarked 
in  the  following  month,  kept  the  Northern  Senators  on  their 
side  of  the  Senate  "sullen  and  gloomy"  while  "we  sit  on  our 
side  with  portentous  scowls.  .  .  .  We  are  enemies  as  much  as 
if  we  were  hostile  States,"  88  —  all  this  was  not  the  outgrowth 
of  a  year's  excitement,  nor  did  it  begin  in  the  John  Brown 
raid.  There  was  seething  bitterness  when  the  Kansas-Ne 
braska  act  was  passed.  There  were  two  hostile  camps  when 
Sumner  was  struck  down  and  one  side  of  the  Senate  mourned, 
while  the  other  exulted. 

Ip.i8.SQ.  the  public  recognized  in  John  Brown  a  fanatic,  but 
onejTthose  fanaticsTvVliO,  by  theii  leadiiiess  to  sacnnce  their 
lives,  arejorever  advancing  the  world,  rienty  exclaimed,  iilce 

"  Hnnr  nlH   John    Rrown/Trod   fflnctify  hts 


cteath  to  our  good,  and  give  us  a  little  of  his  courage,  piety  and 
self-sacrificing  spirit,  with  more  brains  !^  89  They  saw  that  he 

"Had  no  personal  ambition:  they  felt  that  he  was  brave.  kincT. 

Jionest,  truth-telling  and  God-revering.  The  nature  of  the 
conflict  before  the  country  was  thereby  revealed  to  them,  and 
the_revelation  advanced  the  conflict  immeasurably,  just  as  it 
stirred  the  slave-power  to  new  aggressions.  It  was  likejthe" 

lightning  from  the  sky  that  lights  up  the  daflcness  of  the  com- 
ingstorm,  so  that  men  may  for  a  fraction  ot  a  second  take 
measu^of  its  progress,  bo  even  across  the  water  it  iliumfc 


588  JOHN  BROWN 

nated  the  heavens  to  Victor  Hugo  and  let  him  look  so  far 
into  the  future  that  he  wrote: 

"The  gaze  of  Europe  is  fixed  at  this  moment  on  America.  .  .  . 
The  hangman  of  Brown  —  let  us  speak  plainly  —  the  hangman  of 
Brown  will  be  neither  District-Attorney  Hunter,  nor  Judge  Parker, 
nor  Governor  Wise,  nor  the  little  State  of  Virginia,  but  —  you  shud 
der  to  think  it  and  to  give  it  utterance  —  the  whole  great  American 
Republic.  ...  It  will  open  a  latent  fissure  that  will  finally  split  the 
Union  asunder.  The  punishment  of  John  Brown  may  consolidate 
slavery  in  Virginia,  but  it  will  certainly  shatter  the  American  De 
mocracy.  You  preserve  your  shame  but  you  kill  your  glory." 

It  was  to  Victor  Hugo,  too,  the  "  assassination  of  Deliverance 
Liberty."90 

ut  the  true  Deliverance  came  with  John  Brown  behind  the 
bars  at  Charlestown,  when  there  was  suddenly  revealed  to 
him  how  inferior  a  weapon  was  the  sword  he  had  leaned  upon 
from  the  time  he  had  abandoned  the  pursuits  of  peace  for 
his  warfare  on  slavery.  Not  often  in  history  is  there  recorded 
such  a  rise  to  spiritual  greatness  of  one  whose  hands  were  so 
stained  with  blood,  whose  judgment  was  ever  so  faulty,  whose 
—public  career  was  so  brief.  John  Brown  is  anoWnust  remain 
a  great  and  lasting  figure  in  American  history.  \Not,  however, 
because  he  strove  to  undo  one  wrong  by  committing  another; 
not  because  he  took  human  lives  in  a  vain  effort  to  end  the 
sacrifice  of  other  lives  and  souls  entailed  by  slavery.  Judged 
by  the  ordinary  legal  and  moral  standards,  John  Brown's  life 
was  forfeit  after  Harper's  Ferry.  Th,e  methods  by  which  he 
essayed  to  achieve  reforms  are  never  to'be'justified  until  two 
wrongs  make  a  right.  It  was  the  weapon  of  the  spirit  by  which 
he  finally  conquered.  Iff  iYs~poweF  lies  liot  only  the  secret  of 
his  influence,  and  his  immortality,  but  the  finest  ethical  teach 
ings  of  a  life  which,  for  all  its  faults,  inculcates  many  an  en 
during  lesson,  and  will  forever  make  its  appeal  to  the  imagi 
nation.  His  brief,  yet  everlasting,  prison  life  is  the  clearest 
condemnation  of  his  violent  methods  both  in  Kansas  and  in 
Virginia.  For  the  Abolitionists,  it  will  be  remembered,  he  had 
had  nothing  but  contempt.  Theirs  were  "but  words,  words;" 
yet  it  was  by  worlds,  and  words,  embodying  his  moral  princi 
ples,  the  theological  teachings  he  valued  so  highly,  the  doc 
trines  of  the  Saviour,  who  knew  no  distinction  of  race,  creed  or 


YET  SHALL  HE  LIVE  589 

color,  and  by  the  beauty  of  his  own  peace  of  spirit  in  the  face  of 
death,  that  he  stirred  his  Northern  countrymen  to  their  depths 
and  won  the  respect  even  of  the  citizens  of  the  South.  It  was 
in  jail  that  he  discovered,  too,  how  those  very  words  of  the  Abo 
lition  preachers  he  had  despised  had  prepared  and  watered 
the  soil  so  that  his  own  seed  now  fell  upon  fertile  fields,  took 
root,  and  sprouted  like  the  magic  plants  of  children's  fables.  _ 
Thus  it  came  about  that  when  the  men  of  the  North,  within 
an  amazingly  brief  space  of  time,  found  themselves,  to  their 
astonishment,  likewise  compelled  to  go  South  with  arms  in 
their  hands,  it  was  not  the  story  of  bloody  Pottawatomie,  nor 
of  the  battle  at  Osawatomie,  that  thrilled  them,  nor  even  of 
the  dauntless  lion  at  bay  in  the  engine  house.  It  was  the  man 
on  the  scaffold  sacrificing,  not  taking  life,  who  inspired.  The 
^hRt  regiment  aftpr  regimpnt  sang 


nnt_w[th  John  Brown's  fpphlp  ^rnrHJ  hiif  wi'th  hi>  snnl.  Tt  was 
the  heroic  qualities  of  his  spirit  that  awed  them,  his  wonderful 
readiness  to  die  with  joy  and  in  peace,  as  so  majiy  of  them 
Vere  about  to  die  for  the  nation  and  the  freedornot  another 
'face.  They,  too,  were  giving  up  all  that  was  dear  to  them, 
their  wives,  their  children,  the  prospect  of  happy 


own  bodies  the  sabres  ot  their  enemies.  Theirs,  too,  was  the 
ennobling  experience  of  self-sacrificeT  How  great,  then,  must 
have  been  their  inspiration,  to  feel  that  he  who  was  the  first  in 
America  to  die  for  a  treason  which  became  as  if  overnight  th< 
highest  form  of  devotion  to  an  inspired  cause,  was  marching 

n!]LJI!JJ?-p 


And  so,  wherever  there  is  battling  against  injustice  and 
oppression,  the  Charlestown  gallows  that  became  a  cross  will 
help  men  to  live  and  die.   The  story  of  John  Brown  will  ever 
confront  the  spirit  of  despotism,  when  men  are  struggling  to 
throw  off  the  shackles  of  social  or  political  or  physical  slavery. 
His  own  country,  while  admitting  his  mistakes  without  undu& 
palliation  or  excuse,  will  forever  acknowledge  the  divine  that  \ 
was  in  him  by  the  side  of  what  was  human  and  faulty,  and] 
blind  and  wrong.  It  will  cherish  the  memory  of  the  prisoner  \ 
of  Charlestown  in  1859  as  at  once  a  sacred,  a  solemn  and  an/ 
inspiring  American  heritage. 


NOTES 

CHAPTER  I 
^  THE  MOULDING  OF  THE  MAN 

1.  The  original  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Stearns  family  at  Medford,  Mass. 

2.  Recollections  of  an  Old  Settler,  by  Christian  Cackler,  Hudson,  Ohio,  1870, 
pp.  20-21. 

3.  Ibid.,  p.  29. 

4.  John  Brown  to  George  B.  Gill  and  others,  Chatham,  Canada  West,  May  18, 
1858,  printed  in  Davenport,  Iowa,  Gazette,  Feb.  27,  1878. 

5.  The  Autobiography  of  Nathaniel  Southgate  Shaler,  Boston,  1909,  p.  3. 

6.  For  these  and  subsequent  facts  relating  to  the  Brown  ancestry,  the  author 
is  indebted  to  George  E.  Bowman,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  and  Editor  for  the  Massachu 
setts  Society  of  Mayflower  Descendants,  who  settled  the  question  of  the  Windsor 
Peter  Brown's  family  in  The  Mayflower  Descendant  for  January,  1903,  vol.  5, 
no.  i,  pp.  29-37;  to  the  Librarian  of  the  New  England  Historical  and  Genealo 
gical  Society,  Mr.  William  P.  Greenlaw,  who  is  also  satisfied,  after  a  search  of  the 
records,  that  Peter  Brown  of  the  Mayflower  left  no  male  issue,  and  to  Mrs.  Mary 
Lovering  Holman,  who,  at  the  author's  request,  worked  out  a  complete  genealogy 
of  the  Brown  and  Mills  family  as  far  back  as  the  Windsor  connections. 

7.  The  extracts  here  given  are  from  the  original  MS.  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
S.  C.  Davis,  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 

8.  Owen  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Hudson,  Ohio,  March  27,  1856.  —  Original  in 
the  collections  of  the  Kansas  State  Historical  Society,  Topeka,  Kansas. 

9.  From  the  original  MS.  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Mary  E.  Thompson,  Pasa 
dena,  Cal. 

10.  Owen  Brown  was  also  credited  with  a  rich  vein  of  humor,  intensified  by 
a  habit  of  stuttering  and  a  keen  perception  of  the  ridiculous.   The  following  bit 
of  his  philosophy  of  marriage,  not  heretofore  recorded  and  now  in  the  possession 
of  Miss  Mary  E.  Thompson,  he  sent  to  his  granddaughter,  Ruth  Brown  Thomp 
son,  shortly  after  her  marriage,  when  he  was  himself  eighty  years  of  age:  "There 
is  much  said  about  womens  wrights  in  these  days  and  it  is  tru  they  have  there 
wrights  and  what  are  they  but  the  love  and  care  of  a  faithful  Husband,  with  a 
share  in  all  his  honours  joys  and  comforts  of  every  kind,  if  he  has  good  Company 
she  must  be  a  shearer  if  he  has  no  company  she  must  be  his  good  company.    If 
hir  Husband  is  in  trouble  and  affliction  she  must  be  afflicted  and  sympathise  with 
him  and  make  them  as  lite  as  possable.  Sometimes  Men  bring  troubles  on  them 
selves,  in  such  cases  Men  or  Women  want  there  comforters  and  had  not  ought 
to  be  deprived  while  at  some  time  we  see  it  quite  the  reverce.   I  was  once  in  com 
pany  with  a  woman  and  asked  about  another  Cupple,  how  they  got  along.   She 
said  they  jest  rubed  along.   I  told  hir  I  was  indebted  to  hir  for  the  way  she  had 
expresed  it,  this  is  the  case  of  very  many  Husbands  and  wives,  they  jest  rub 
along  and  the  wheals  of  time  never  go  chearfull  and  clean  but  are  always  rubing." 

11.  Reminiscences  of  Hudson,  Supplement  to  the  Hudson  Independent,  re 
printed  as  a  pamphlet,  Hudson,  Ohio,  1899. 

i    12.  From  the  MS.  records  of  the  Trustees  of  Oberlin  College,  Oberlin,  Ohio. 


5921 


NOTES 


13.  For  these  anecdotes  see,  for  example,  Historical  Collections  of  Ohio,  by 
Henry   Howe,    Columbus,  1891,  vol.    3,  pp.  331-333.  article  written   by  M.  C. 
Read,  of  Hudson,  Ohio,  a  member  of  the  faculty  of  Western  Reserve  College;  see 
also  statement  of  Charles  P.  Read  to  Dr.  F.  C.  Waite,  Hudson,  Dec.  25,  1908, 
in  possession  of  the  author;  also  Christian  Cackler's  pamphlet. 

14.  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown,  by  Frank  B.  Sanborn,  Boston,  1885,  pp. 

38-39. 

15.  Statement  of  Dr.  Francis  Bacon,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  Feb.  13,  1908,  to 
K.  Mayo;  'John  Brown,'  by  Leonard  Woolsey  Bacon,  New  Englander  and  Yale 
Review,  April,  1886,  pp.  289-302. 

16.  From  MS.  of  Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson,  in  possession  of  her  daughter. 
The  Rev.  H.  L.  Vaill,  of  Litchfield,  Conn.,  fixed  the  year  of  John  Brown's  at 
tendance  at  Morris  Academy  as  1817.   See  letter  of  L.  W.  Bacon  to  the  Editor 
of  the  New  York  Independent,  reprinted  in  the  Liberator  of  Dec.  2,  1859.   In  his 
letter  to  his  men  from  Chatham,  May  18,  1858,  John  Brown  states  that  he  was 
travelling  "between  the  sea-side  and  Ohio"  in  the  spring  of  1817.  See  Davenport 
Gazette,  Feb.  27,  1878. 

17.  John  Brown  and  His  Men,  by  R.  J.  Hinton,  New  York,  1894,  p.  13;  letter 
of  William  H.  Hallock  in  Hartford  Press,  Nov.  u,  1859. 

18.  Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson's  MS. 

19.  As  narrated  by  Mrs.  Danley  Hobart,  Levi  Blakeslee's  daughter,  Cleveland, 
Dec.  31,  1908,  to  Miss  Katherine  Mayo,  and  in  Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson's 
MS. 

20.  California  Christian  Advocate,  July  18,  1894. 

21.  Statement   of    Mrs.   Annie   Brown  Adams,  Petrolia,  Cal.,  Oct.  2,   1908; 
of  Benjamin  Kent  Waite,  Columbus,  Ohio,  Dec.  26,  1908;  and  of  Mrs.  Nelson 
Waite  and  Mrs.  Henry  Pettingill,  Hudson,  Dec.  1908;  all  to  K.  Mayo.  The  last 
three  witnesses  state  that  both  of  Dianthe  Lusk's  sisters  died  mentally  infirm. 

22.  Sanborn,  pp.  33-34. 

23.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Akron,  Dec.  28,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo.   The  other 
facts  in  regard  to  Brown's  attitude  toward  his  children  are  largely  drawn  from 
the  manuscript  of  Mrs.  Thompson;  from  the  statements  of  four  of  the  surviving 
children,  Miss  Sarah  Brown,  Jason  Brown,  Salmon   Brown  and  Annie  Brown 
Adams;  and  from  the  statements  of  the  following  neighbors  familiar  with  the 
Brown  family  life:  Alfred  Hawkes,  Mrs.  Sherman  Thompson,  Mrs.  Danley  Ho 
bart,  Charles  Lusk,  Mrs.  Charles  P.  Brown,  R.  M.  Sanford,  Miss  Annie  Perkins, 
Mrs.  Charles  Perkins,  Col.  George  T.  Perkins,  R.  W.  Thompson,  Mrs.  Nelson 
Waite,  Mrs.  Henry  Pettingill  and  Mrs.  Porter  Hall,  all  in  December,  1908;  and 
of  James  Foreman,  see  Note  25  below. 

24.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.   13  and  14,   1908,  confirmed  by  Mrs. 
Thompson. 

25.  MS.  letter  of   James  Foreman,  Youngsville,  Warren  Co.,  Pa.,  Dec.  28, 
1859,  to  James  Redpath,  now  in  Hinton  Papers,  in  the^  Kansas  Historical  So 
ciety. 

26.  Ibid. 

27.  An  article  entitled  'An  Abolitionist,'  by  Edward  Erf,  in  the  Pittsburg 
Post  of  May  28,  1899,  gives  briefly  the  main  facts  of  Brown's  life  in  Richmond; 
other  details  are  from  the  Foreman  letter,  from  the  MS.  narrative  of  George  B. 
Delamater,  a  copy  of  which  is  in  Miss  Thompson's  possession,  and  from  the 
records  of  the  Post  Office  Department  at  Washington. 

28.  According  to  the  Bible  of  Mrs.  Julia  Pitkin,  Dianthe  Lusk's  sister,  the 
latter  was  born  January  12,  1801,  and  was  therefore  in  her  thirty-second  year 


NOTES  593 

at  the  time  of  her  death.  Jason  Brown  vividly  recalls  being  summoned,  with  his 
brothers,  by  their  father  to  stand  by  the  bedside  of  their  dying  mother,  and 
recalls  also  the  admonition  she  gave  them. 

29.  The  recollections  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown,  Saratoga,  Cal.,  have  been  largely 
drawn  upon  for  this  characterization  of  Mary  Day  Brown. 

30.  See  interview  with  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  the  Cleveland  Press,  May  3,  1895; 
Henry  L.  Kellogg's  report  of  Owen  Brown's  version  of  the  incident,  in  the  Chris 
tian  Cynosure  of  March  31,  1887;  interview  of  Mrs.  John  Brown  in  the  Kansas 
City  Journal  of  April  8,  1881;  the  story  is  also  confirmed  by  Henry  Thompson's 
statement,  Aug.  27,  1908,  by  Miss  Brown's  statement  of  Sept.  16,  1908,  and  by 
that  of  George  B.  Gill,  Attica,  Kansas,  Nov.  12,  1908,  all  to  K.  Mayo. 

31.  From  a  facsimile  of  the  original  in  the  Kent,  Ohio,  Courier,  Sept.  14,  1906. 

32.  For  the  facts  as  to  Brown's  business  and  real  estate  transactions,  see  the 
Kent  Courier  of  Sept.  14,  1906,  the  statements  in  it  being  furnished  by  the  late 
Marvin  Kent;  also  Fifty  Years  and  Over  of  Akron  and  Summit  County,  by  ex- 
Sheriff  Samuel  A.  Lane,  Akron,   1892,   p.  385  et  seq.;  also  statement  of  Mr. 
William  S.  Kent,  son  of  Marvin  Kent,  Kent,  Ohio,  Dec.  23  and  24,  1908,  to 
K.  Mayo. 

33.  On  pages  87-89  of  Sanborn's  Life  there  is  an  able  review  by  John  Brown, 
Jr.,  of  his  father's  business  mistakes,  from  which  this  excerpt  is  taken. 

34.  He  and  his  wife  sold,  on  Sept.  17,  1838,  a  lot  of  land  in  Franklin  township 
for  $3500.  The  deed  is  in  Miss  Sarah  Brown's  possession. 

35.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger,  Campbell,  Cal. 

36.  See  his  first  note-book,  now  preserved  in  Boston  Public  Library. 

37.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown,  Saratoga,  Cal. 

38.  Sanborn,  pp.  55-56. 

39.  From  the  original  in  the  possession  of  George  D.  Smith,  48  Wall  Street, 
New  York  City. 

40.  Sanborn,  p.  56. 

41.  The  narrative  of  John  Brown's  negotiations  with  the  Trustees  of  Oberlin 
is  drawn  from  the  official  records,  and  from  the  correspondence  in  the  case  in  the 
Treasurer's  Office  of  Oberlin  College,  Oberlin,  Ohio;  the  letter  of  April  27,  1840, 
will  be  found  in  Sanborn,  p.  134. 

42.  From  the  original  court  inventory  of  Sept.  28,  1842,  in  possession  of  Miss 
Sarah  Brown. 

43.  John  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Richfield,  Jan.  II,  1844,  Sanborn,  pp. 
59-60  (edited  by  Mr.  Sanborn). 

44.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

45.  '  The  Last  Days  of  Old  John  Brown,'  by  Lou  V.  Chapin,  Overland  Monthly* 
April,  1899,  pp.  322-332- 

46.  Statement  of  Mrs.  William  A.  Hall  to  W.  P.  Garrison,  April  18,  1895; 
statement  of  Mrs.  Charles  Perkins,  Akron,  Ohio,  Dec.  12,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

47.  Summaries  of  all  these  various  cases  were  kindly  obtained  for  the  author 
by  Mr.  W.  D.  Jenkins,  Clerk  of  the  Courts,  Ravenna,  Ohio. 

48.  It  is  entitled  Heman  Oviatt  versus  John  Brown,  Daniel  C.  Gaylord,  Amos 
Chamberlain,  Tertius  Wadsworth,  Joseph  Wells  and  others,  Supreme  Court  of 
Ohio,  January  term,  1846,  and  is  reported  at  length  in  14  Ohio  Reports,  286. 

49.  There  is  a  mass  of  evidence  in  regard  to  Brown's  refusal  to  give  up  the  farm 
to  Chamberlain.    The  author  has  examined,  besides  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  story  of 
the  trouble  (Sanborn,  pp.  86-87),  Gen.  N.  Eggleston's  charges  printed  in  the 
Rockford,  111.,  Journal-Herald  of  Nov.  3,  1883,  and  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  answer 
to  them  in  the  Topeka  Capital  of  Dec.  22,  1883;  also  statements  of  Jason  Brown, 


'594  NOTES 

made  in  Akron,  Dec.  1908,  and  of  R.  W.  Thompson  and  R.  M.  Sanford,  of  Hud 
son,  near  neighbors  of  Brown's,  made  at  Hudson,  Dec.  20,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo; 
Mrs.  Sherman  Thompson,  of  Hudson,  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  kindly 
furnished  the  view  of  the  case  taken  by  the  Chamberlain  family;  the  pamphlet  of 
Christian  Cackler,  already  referred  to,  gives  his  unfavorable  opinion  on  pp.  36-37. 
50.  The  original  of  this  letter  is  in  the  possession  of  the  author. 


CHAPTER  II 
"HIS  GREATEST   OR  PRINCIPAL  OBJECT" 

r    i.  Sanborn,  pp.  40-41  (edited). 

2.  See,  for  a  careful  analysis  of  this  whole  question  in  the  light  of  Brown's 
first  memorandum-book,  The  Preludes  of  Harper's  Ferry,  a  pamphlet  by  Wendell 
Phillips  Garrison,  comprising  two  papers  contributed  to  the  Andover  Review  in 
December,  1890,  and  January,  1891.    Upon  this  the  author  has  freely  drawn. 

3.  Sanborn,  p.  6 1  (edited). 

4.  See  letter  of  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Dec.  22,  1890,  in  the  Nation  of  Dec.  25,  1890, 
which  includes  the  one  from  John  Brown,  Jr.,  here  quoted. 

5.  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  affidavit  in  the  Gerrit  Smith  case  was  given  at  Sandusky, 
Ohio,  July  19,  1867.    A  copy  of  the  original  is  in  the  author's  possession;  cf. 
Sanborn,  p.  39. 

6.  From  Miss  Thompson's  copy  of  the  Delamater  MS. 

7.  Quoted  in  James  Freeman  Clarke's  Anti-Slavery  Days,  New  York,  1884, 
pp.  155-156. 

8.  Life  and  Times  of  Frederick  Douglass,  by  Himself,  Hartford,  Conn.,  1882, 

PP.  309-314- 

9.  F.  B.  Sanborn  (MS.)  to  W.  P.  Garrison,  Concord,  Dec.  5,  1890. 

10.  Sanborn,  p.  134. 

11.  Statement   of   Miss  Sarah    Brown,   Saratoga,   Cal.,  Sept.    16,  1908,  to 
K.  Mayo. 

12.  For  the  garbled  version,  see  the  account  of  Daniel  B.  Hadley  in  McClurc's 
Magazine,  Jan.  1898,  pp.  278-282.    Mrs.  Annie   Brown  Adams  states  (Oct.  2, 
1908)  that  the  man  Ruggles,  who  committed  the  assault,  did  so  when  Brown  lay 
helpless  from  fever  in  his  ox-cart.   John  Brown's  children  know  nothing  of  his 
alleged  non-resistant  views. 

13.  Hinton's  John  Brown,  p.  585.    "The  Branded  Hand"  was  the  sobriquet 
of  Jonathan  Walker,  sea  captain,  of  Harwich,  Mass.,  who  was  captured  on  his 
vessel  by  a  United  States  ship,  when  smuggling  slaves  to  a  free  port,  imprisoned, 
pilloried  and  branded  on  the  hand  for  the  offence.  The  Rev.  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  of 
Alton,  111.,  was  the  editor  of  an  anti-slavery  religious  paper,  the  Observer.   Three 
times  his  presses  were  destroyed  by  a  mob  determined  to  stop  his  utterances.    In 
defending  a  fourth  press,  Nov.  7,  1837,  he  was  murdered..  The  Rev.  Charles 
T.  Torrey  suffered  imprisonment  for  his  attempts  to  run  off  negroes  from  the 
border  States,  and  died  in  prison. 

14.  Hinton's  John  Brown,  pp.  587-588. 

15.  From  the  original  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

16.  Statements  of  Henry  Myers  and  Daniel  Woodruff  Myers  to  K.  Mayo, 
Hudson,  Ohio,  Dec.  xi,  1908.   ~"~ 

17.  Sanborn,  p.  191. 

"  '18.  Statement  of  Mrs.  ;Adams,  Petrolia,  Cal.,  Oct.  2,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo;  also 


NOTES  595 


letter  of  same  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  Petrolia,  June  7,  1894,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

19.  Cf.  Sanborn,  p.  133.    Thomas  Thomas  personally  asserted  this  to  Mr. 
Sanborn. 

20.  "  Did  I  ever  tell  you  that  Father  changed  his  plan  several  times  and  finally 
adopted  the  old  original  one?"  —  Mrs.  Adams  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  June  7,  1894,39 
above. 

21.  See,  for  instance,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
Boston,  1898,  pp.  222-223;  also  Sanborn,  p.  525. 

22.  Agnes  Brown  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  Portland,  Oregon,  Oct.  15,  1902,  setting 
forth  her  father's  (Salmon  Brown's)  views.  —  Copy  in  possession  of  author. 

23.  Life  of  Frederick  Douglass,  pp.  309-310.  The  author  has  consulted  George 
A.  Graves,  a  neighbor  of  Brown's,  and  other  residents  of  Springfield  for  facts 
as  to  this  period  of  Brown's  life. 

24.  Life  of  Frederick  Douglass,  p.  311. 

;    25.  Related  by  Salmon  Brown,  Portland,  Oregon,  Oct.  13,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo.  V 

26.  Sanborn,  p.  63. 

27.  The  original  letter-book  was  kindly  loaned  to  the  author  by  Mrs.  Ellen 
Brown  Fablinger,  of  Campbell,  Cal. 

28.  Perkins  &  Brown  to  Messrs.  Crafts  &  Still,  Springfield,  July  u,  1846, 
Letter-Book  No.  I,  p.  31. 

29.  Letter-Book  No.  I,  p.  70. 

30.  Perkins  &  Brown  to  Hamilton  Gay,  ibid.,  p.  116. 

31.  The  same  to  Friend  Benjamin  W.  Ladd,  Springfield,  Dec.  14,  1846,  Let 
ter-Book  No.  i,  p.  158. 

32.  Cleveland,  Ohio,  Weekly  Herald,  March  17,  1847. 

33.  When  John  Brown  was  in  jail  in  Charlestown,  Aaron  Erickson,  a  wool- 
merchant  and  a  highly  esteemed  pioneer  in  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  wrote  to  Gov.  Wise 
of  his  belief  in  Brown's  insanity,  because  of  the  latter's  "delusion  that  wool  had 
never  been  properly  graded."    Mr.  Erickson  also  alleged  that  Brown  was  not 
skilful  in  testing  wools,  and  that  his  whole  "defiance  of  the  plainest  and  simplest 
laws  of  commerce,"  which  led  to  his  business  collapse,  could  be  charged  only  to 
an  unbalanced  mind.    The  original  Erickson  letter  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr. 
Edwin  Tatham,  of  New  York. 

34.  See  Sanborn,  pp.  67-68. 

35.  Sanborn,  p.  72  (edited). 

36.  Originals  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

37.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Put-in-Bay,  Ohio. 

38.  Ibid. 

39.  This  figure  has  been  frequently  said  to  be  $70,000.    The  estimate  here 
given  seems  about  correct  to  Col.  George  T.  Perkins,  the  son  of  Simon  Perkins 
(letter  of  July  22,  1908,  to  the  author). 

40.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr. 

41.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  as  is  that  of  the  letter  next 
quoted. 

42.  Statement  of  Miss  Anna  Perkins,  daughter  of  Simon  Perkins,  Akron,  Ohio, 
Dec.  12,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo;  Miss  Perkins  also  says  that  her  father  "never  ques 
tioned  John  Brown's  exact  probity." 

43.  John  Brown  to  his  "Wife  and  Children  every  one,  Ingersol,  Canada  West, 
l6th  April,  1858."  —  Original  in  possession  of  Alfred  A.  Sprague,  of  Chicago. 

44.  John  Brown  to  Simon  Perkins,  Troy,  26th  Jan.  1852.  —  Original  in  the 
Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 


596  NOTES 

45.  Sanborn,  pp.  79-80. 

46.  John  Brown  to  his  son  John,  Feb.  24,  1854,  Sanborn,  pp.  156-157. 

47.  From  the  original,  dated  April  3,  1854,  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  John 
Brown,  Jr. 

48.  Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson's  MS.,  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

49.  Printed  in  full  in  tfce  Liberator  of  Feb.  3,  1860. 

50.  Springfield  Re  publican,  article  on  'John  Brown's  Fugitives,'  June  12,  1909. 

51.  Original  in  possession  of  Alfred  A.  Sprague,  of  Chicago. 

52.  Original  in  possession  of  Charles  P.  Brown,  Akron,  Ohio. 

53-  To  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Akron,  Aug.  26,  1853. —  Sanborn,  pp.  45-51. 

54.  Gerrit   Smith,  by  O.  B.  Frothingham,   1st,  or  suppressed   edition,  New 
York,  1878,  pp.  102-107  et  seq. 

55.  Ibid.,  pp.  235-236. 

56.  New  York  Tribune,  Nov.  5,  1852. 

57.  Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson's  MS.  John  Brown  to  Simeon  Perkins,  Spring 
field,  Mass.,  May  24,  1859.  — Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Hull  Platt,  Walling- 
ford,  Pa. 

58.  Transactions  Essex  County,  N.  Y.,  Agricultural  Society,  1850,  p.  229;  The 
Life,   Trial  and  Conviction  of  Capt.  John  Brown,  New  York,  R.  M.  DeWitt, 
Publisher,  1859,  pp.  9-10. 

59.  From  copy  in  the  Library  of  Harvard  University. 

60.  Ibid. 

61.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author,  April,  1909. 
'    62.  Mrs.  Ruth  Brown  Thompson's  MS. 

63.  'How  We  Met  John  Brown,'  by  Richard  Henry  Dana,  Jr.,  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  for  July,  1871,  pp.  1-9. 

64.  John  Brown  to  his  son,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Vernon,  Oneida  County,  N.  Y., 
March  24,  1851. —  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.    Further  evi 
dence  of  John  Brown's  unsettled  life  at  this  period  appears  in  his  letter  to  his 
father,  dated  "  Steamer  United  States,  Lake  Champlain,   23rd   May,    1850."  — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 

65.  John  Brown  to  Ruth  and    Henry  Thompson,  Akron,  Feb.   13,   1855. — 
Original  in  Haverford  College  Library,  Haverford,  Pa. 

66.  Original  in  the  Byron  Reed  Collection,  Omaha  Public  Library,  as  is  also 
the  original  of  the  letter  of  Aug.  24,  1854,  previously  mentioned  in  text. 

67.  MS.  statement  of  Gerrit  Smith,  Jan.  3,  1874,  property  of  Mr.  Sanborn. 

68.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author. 


CHAPTER   III 

IN   THE   WAKE   OF   THE   WAR   CLOUD    ' 

1.  Sanborn,  p.  191. 

2.  A  brief  history  of  John  Brown,  etc.   By  one  who  knows  (John  Brown).  MS. 
Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

3.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.  13  and   14,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo,  at  Sher- 
bondy,  Ohio;  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  Cleveland  Leader,  Nov.  29,  1883. 

4.  Cf.,  for  instance,  Gen.  D.  R.  Atchison,  of  Missouri,  in  the  Platte  Argus, 
cited  in  Robinson's  Kansas  Conflict,  p.  94:  "If  abolitionism  under  its  present 
auspices,  is  established  in  Kansas,  there  will  be  constant  strife  and  bloodshed 
between  Kansas  and  Missouri.    Negro  stealing  will  be  a  principle  and  a  voca- 


NOTES  597 

tion.  It  will  be  the  policy  of  philanthropic  knaves,  until  they  force  the  slave 
holder  to  abandon  Missouri;  nor  will  it  be  long  until  it  is  done.  ...  If  Kansas 
is  abolitionized.all  men  who  love  peace  and  quiet  will  leave  us,  and  all  emigration 
to  Missouri  from  the  slave  states  will  cease. "  Senator  Alfred  Iverson,  of  Georgia, 
said  in  a  speech  at  Columbus,  Ga.,  reported  in  the  Savannah  Georgian  of  Nov. 
2,  1855:  "If  Slavery  gives  way  in  Kansas,  Missouri  will  be  surrounded  on  three 
sides  by  non-slaveholding  States,  and  the  institution  must  give  way  there;  it  will 
also  be  in  peril  in  the  Indian  Territory  lying  south  of  Kansas;  it  will  then  only 
remain  for  the  Abolitionists  to  extend  their  influence  to  Western  Texas,  and  the 
great  object  of  their  ambition  will  be  attained.  The  South  will  then  be  reduced 
to  a  hopeless  minority  in  the  Union;  her  institutions  will  be  confined  to  the  narrow 
limits  they  at  present  occupy,  and  their  overthrow  will  only  be  a  question  of 
time."  See  also  speech  of  Congressman  Felix  K.  Zollicoffer,  Appendix  to  the  Con 
gressional  Globe,  33d  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  xxxv,  p.  584;  address  by  citizens 
of  western  Missouri  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  after  Lexington,  Mo., 
convention,  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Sept.  25,  1855;  letter  of  Atchison  to  Committee  of 
Battle  of  King's  Mountain  Celebration,  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  2,  1855. 

5.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  New  York,  1904,  vol.  I,  pp. 
475  and  489;  Louis  A.  Reese,  The  Admission  of  Kansas  into  the  Union  (MS.). 

6.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.  13  and  14,  1908. 

7.  Salmon  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Brownsville,  K.  T.,  May  21,  1855. —  Origi 
nal  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

8.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  Cleveland  Leader,  Nov.  29,  1883. 

9.  Letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Brownsville,  K.  T.,  dated  May  20,  24,  and  26, 
to  John  Brown.  —  Original  in  Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

10.  A  brief  history  of  John  Brown,  etc. 

11.  John  Brown  to  John  W.  Cook,  of  Walcottville,  Conn.,  from  Akron,  Ohio, 
I3th  Feb.,  1855. —  Original  in  Torrington,  Conn.,  Public  Library. 

12.  Frederick  Douglass:  The  Colored  Orator,  by  Frederic  May  Holland,  New 
York,  1891,  p.  247. 

13.  John  Brown  to  his  wife  and  children,  Syracuse,  June  28,  1855. —  Copy 
in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown.   The  "old  British  army  officer"  mentioned 
in  this  letter  was  Capt.  Charles  Stuart  (sometimes  erroneously  called  "Stewart"). 
See  Life  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  by  his  Children,  Boston,  1894,  vol.  i,  p. 
262,  and  vol.  3,  p.  418;  Sanborn,  p.  194. 

14.  John  Brown,  Akron,  Ohio,  Aug.  15,  1855,  to  his  wife  and  children.  —  Ori 
ginal  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger.    Jason  Brown,  in  his  state 
ment  of  Dec.  28,  1908,  confirms  Sheriff  Lane's  recollection  of  Brown's  method  of 
raising  arms  in  Akron. 

15.  John  Brown  to  his  wife  and  children,  Aug.  23,  1855. — ^Original  in  pos 
session  of  Alfred  A.  Sprague,  of  Chicago. 

16.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  John  Brown,  June  22,  1855.  —  Original  in  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

17.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

1 8.  John  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Aug.  9,  1858,  from  copy  of  the  letter  in 
possession  of  Miss  Mary  E.  Thompson,  Pasadena,  Cal. 

19.  Statement  of  Henry  Thompson,  Pasadena,  Cal.,  August,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

20.  John  Brown  to  his  wife  and  children,  Osawatomie,  K.  T.,  Oct.  13  and 
Nov.  2,  1855, —  originals  in  Kansas  Historical  Society;  also  letter  of  Nov.  23, 
1855,  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown.   The  distress  of  the  family  is  again 
described  by  Jason  Brown,  Osawatomie,  Jan.  23,  1856,  to  his  grandfather. —  Ori 
ginal  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark,  Berea,  Ky. 


598  NOTES 

\2i.  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Osawatomie,  K.  T.,  Sept.  16, 
1855,  now  in  possession  of  the  writer  of  the  letter. 
.  22.  Letter  of  Nov.  2,  1855,  as  above. 
•  23.  Letter  of  Nov.  23,  1855,  as  above. 
1  24.  Mrs.  John  Brown  Jr.'s  letter  of  Sept.  16,  1855. 
J  25.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown  at  Sherbondy,  Ohio,  Dec.  28,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

26.  Ibid. 

27.  Statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  Portland,  Oregon,  Oct.  11-13,  1908,  to  K. 
Mayo. 

28.  Kansas  Free  State,  Lawrence,  July  2,  1855;  Herald  of  Freedom,  Lawrence, 
Kansas,  Aug.  8,  1857,  chapter  10  of  'A  Complete  History  of  Kansas ; '  G.  W. 
Martin,  The  First  Two  Years  of  Kansas,  Topeka,  1907,  p.  14. 

29.  Henry  Thompson  to  Ruth  Brown  Thompson,  May  18,  1856.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  Miss  Mary  E.  Thompson. 

30.  Herald  of  Freedom,  cited  in  A.  T.  Andreas,  History  of  the  State  of  Kansas, 
Chicago,  1883,  p.  108;  also  see  Andreas,  p.  no,  for  list  of  members  of  the  first 
Free  State  Executive  Committee. 

31.  Statutes  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  Shawnee  M.  L.  School,  1855.  Mrs. 
Charles  Robinson  says  that  the  Free  State  settlers  interpreted  the  Black  Laws 
to  mean  that  it  was  a  prison  offence  to  have  in  their  homes  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  —  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson,  Kansas :  its  Interior  and  Exterior  Life, 
Boston,  1856,  p.  116. 

32.  D.  W.  Wilder's  Annals  of  Kansas,  Topeka,  1875,  p.  57. 

33.  Letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Sept.  15  and  21,  1855. — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.  At  the  convention  in  Lawrence, 
Aug.  15,  1855,  held  to  ratify  the  acts  of  the  meetings  of  the  past  two  days,  accord 
ing  to  the  Herald  of  Freedom  of  Aug.  18,  1855,  "Frederick  Brown,  of  Mill  Creek, 
one  of  the  five  Browns  alluded  to  in  the  State  convention  of  Radical  Abolitionists 
at  Syracuse,  New  York,  was  in  favor  of  military  organization  for  the  purpose  of 
resisting  invasion  and  aggression."  —  See  Andreas,  p.  108. 

34.  Letter  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Sept.  16,  1855,  now  in  her  possession. 

35.  Thomas  H.  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  5,  p.  157,  in  the  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

36.  John  Brown  to  John  W.  Cook,  Akron,  Ohio,  Feb.  13,  1855;  to  John  Tees- 
dale,  of  Des  Moines,  March,  1859,  printed  March  16,  1895,  in  the  New  York 
Evening  Sun;  statement  of  Henry  Thompson,  Aug.  1908. 

37.  Letter  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Osawatomie,  Jan. 
6,  1856.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

38.  Letter  of  Henry  Thompson  to  Ruth  Brown  Thompson,  Oct.  19,  1855,  — 
original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson;  statement  of  Henry  Thompson,  Aug. 
1908. 

39.  Reese  MS.;  Census  of  Kansas,  Jan.  and  Feb.  1855,  completed  March  8, 
1855- 

40.  Report  of  the  Majority  of  the  Special  Committee  Appointed  to  Investi 
gate  the  Troubles  in  Kansas.    Report  No.  200,  House  of  Representatives,  34th 
Congress,  1st  session,  Washington,  1856;  hereinafter  called  the  Howard  Report. 
See  also  Charles  Sumner's  speech  of  May  19,  1856,  'The  Crime  Against  Kansas,' 
Appendix  to  the  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  xli,  34th  Congress,  1st  session,  1855-56, 
p.  529. 

41.  Majority  Report  of  Howard  Committee,  p.  8. 

42.  Reported  in  Platte  Argus,  cited  in  T.  N.  Holloway's  History  of  Kansas, 
Lafayette,  Ind.,  1868,  p.  135;  also  in  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Dec.  2,  1854. 


NOTES  599 

.  .         ^ 

r  43.  See  letter  of  the  Tribune's  Washington  correspondent,  J.  D.  Pike,  in  issue 
of  Feb.  13,  1855:  "The  bowie-knife  Missourians  will  elect  the  Legislature  of  Kan 
sas  as  they  elected  its  delegate;"  also  correspondence  of  Cleveland  Herald  and 
Philadelphia  Ledger,  quoted  in  New  York  Tribune,  Dec.  9,  1854. 
44.  Howard  Report,  p.  4. 

•  45.  Ibid.,  pp.  5-6. 

f  46.  Reese  MS.;  Andreas,  p.  94;  Howard  Report,  p.  79  et  seq. 

*  47.  Howard  Report,  p.  8;  Reese  MS.;  Andreas,  p.  94. 

'   48.  Kansas  Herald,  April  6,  1855,  cited  in  Andreas,  p.  97.    ? 

49.  St.  Louis  Pilot,  cited  in  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Dec.  9,  1854;  see  also  views  of 
Washington  Sentinel,  cited  in  Tribune,  Jan.  18,  1855. 

50.  Washington  letters  of  J.  A.  Pike  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Feb.  5,  6  and 
10,  1855;  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  81.    The  Liberator  stated  on  April  13,  1855,  after  the 
second  election:  "Beyond  doubt  the  fate  of  Kansas  is  sealed." 

51.  New  York  Tribune,  Dec.  9  and  25,  1854. 

52.  Andreas,  p.  85;  Richard  Cordley,  History  of  Lawrence,  Lawrence,  Kansas, 
1895,  p.  6. 

53.  Cited  in  Andreas,  p.  83. 

54.  Cited  in  Andreas,  p.  89;  see  also  address  of  Citizens'  Committee  of  Lexing 
ton,  Mo.,  convention,  New  York  Tribune,  Sept.  25,  1855. 

55.  See,  for  instance,  Squatter  Sovereign,  Feb.  20,  1856;  Kickapoo  Pioneer,  Jan. 
18,  1856;  R.  H.  Williams,  With  the  Border  Ruffians,  New  York,  1907,  p.  85;  see 
also  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  15,  p.  83,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  and  files  of 
all  pro-slavery  papers  from  Sept.  1854,  on;  see  also  (Memoir  of  Samuel  Walker) 
Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  6,  pp.  251-255. 

56.  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  14,  p.  35. 

57.  W.  A.  Phillips,  Conquest  of  Kansas,  Boston,  1856,  pp.  28-30. 

58.  T.  H.  Gladstone,  The  Englishman  in  Kansas,  New  York,  1857,  p.  41. 

59.  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson's  Kansas,  pp.  15  and  19-20;  see  also  graphic  picture 
of  Atchison's  Missourians  at  Doniphan  City,  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  April  21, 
1855;  also  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  April  30,  1855;  and  Kansas  Historical  Society  Col 
lections,  vol.  5,  p.  79;  also  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  April  12  and  17,  1855. 

60.  For  these  newspaper  quotations,  see  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections, 
vol.  7,  pp.  29  and  30. 

61.  Statement  of  Gen.  G.  W.  Deitzler,  in  Charles  Robinson's  Kansas  Conflict, 
Lawrence,  1898,  pp.  123-124;  Howard  Report,  pp.  84-85,  1157.    It  is  interesting 
to  note  that  Charles  Sumner,  in  his  great  speech  of  May  19,  1856,  thus  denied  the 
activity  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society:  "For  it  has  supplied  no  arms  of  any  kind  to 
anybody.   It  is  not  true  that  the  Company  has  encouraged  any  fanatical  oppres 
sion  of  the  people  of  Missouri,  for  it  has  consulted  order,  peace,  forbearance;" 
see  also  Robinson,  pp.  123-124;  also  Howard  Report,  pp.  86  and  1157. 

62.  See  Reeder's  testimony,  Howard  Report;  also  Executive  Minutes  of  Gov. 
Reeder,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  pp.  59-60. 

63.  Andreas,  p.  94. 

64.  Howard  Report,  p.  9  et  seq. 

65.  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson's  Kansas,  p.  27;  Howard  Report,  p.  1010;  see  also 
Boonville,  Mo.,  handbill  on  the  "Coming  Election,"  dated  March  13,  cited  in 
N.  Y.  Tribune  of  April  6,  1855. 

66.  Andreas,  p.  90;  Holloway,  pp.  122-123.    The  Self- Defensive  Association, 
having  committed  numerous  outrages,  was  compelled  to  disband,  after  being  de 
nounced  by  a  mass-meeting  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  citizens  of  Weston, 
held  Sept.  I,  1854.  See  Holloway,  p.  127. 


6oo  NOTES 

67.  Howard  Report,  pp.  81-82;  see  also  Andreas,  p.  90;  Holloway,  pp.  124- 
125. 

68.  Howard  Report,  p.  30. 

69.  Ibid.,  pp.  35  and  936. 

70.  Cordley's  Lawrence,  p.  38;  Andreas,  p.  102.  "We  understand  and  believe," 
said  the  St.  Louis  News  on  May  12,  1855,  "that  David  R.  Atchison  is  at  the  bot 
tom  of  all  the  troubles  that  have  afflicted  Kansas,  and  is  the  chief  instigator  of  the 
meetings,  mobs  and  cabals,  threats  and  excitement,  which  threaten  to  plunge  the 
border  into  a  wild  fratricidal  strife." 

71.  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  4,  p.  3;  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol. 

7,  PP-  30-34- 

72.  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  3,  p.  158;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  April  23  and  May  9, 
1855;  Holloway,  p.  156. 

73.  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  3,  p.  213;  see  N.  Y.  Tribune,  April  23  and  26, 
1855.  The  St.  Louis  Democrat,  April  21,  1855,  was  one  of  a  number  of  papers  to 
approve  the  destruction  of  the  Parkville  Luminary.  The  Platte,  Mo.,  Argus  said: 
"The  'freedom  of  the  press'  is  not  for  traitors  and  incendiaries;  "  see  Robinson, 
p.  131. 

74.  See   article   in  the  Western  Reporter,  April  21,   1856,  condemning  Blue 
Lodges  and  the  emigration  from  Missouri  into  Kansas;  also  the  article  'The  Pass 
ing  of  Slavery  in  Western  Missouri,'  by  John  G.  Haskell,  Kansas  Historical  So 
ciety  Collections,  vol.  7,  pp.  28-39;  a^so  the  amusing  testimony  of  Thos.  Thorpe, 
of  Platte  County,  Missouri,  in  Phillips's  Conquest  of  Kansas,  pp.  91-97. 

75.  July  6,  1855,  was  the  date  of  Gov.  Reeder's  veto.   For  the  message  in  full, 
see  Journal  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  1855, 
p.  29.  A  similar  veto  message  will  be  found  in  full  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  for  July 
31,  1855;  see  also  Andreas,  p.  103. 

76.  Journal  of  the  Council  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  1855,  July  30,  Appen 
dix,  pp.  i  and  2. 

77.  Reeder's  Testimony,  Howard  Report,  pp.  944-945.    For  memorial  for 
removal  of  Gov.  Reeder,  see  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp. 
200-204.  For  the  official  letter  removing  Reeder,  see  34th  Congress,  1st  session. 
Sen.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  23. 

78.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  86. 

79.  Cf.  Holloway,  pp.  170-171;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Aug.  25,  1855. 

80.  Journal  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  Kansas  Territory,  1855. 

81.  Cordley,  p.  33;  Robinson,  p.  121. 

82.  Andreas,  p.  107;  Reese  MS. 

83.  Andreas,  p.  106;  Holloway,  p.  178;  Cordley,  p.  34. 

84.  Cordley,  p.  35;  Andreas,  p.  106;  Holloway,  p.  178. 

85.  Robinson,  p.  143;  Andreas,  p.  106;  James  Henry  Lane,  by  W.  E.  Con- 
nelley,  Topeka,  1899,  p.  47. 

86.  Holloway,  p.  179;  Andreas,  pp.  106-107. 

87.  This  summary  of  the  two  conventions  of  Aug.  14  and  15  is  drawn  from  the 
accounts  of  Andreas,  Robinson,  Holloway,  Reese,  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  and  con 
temporary  Kansas  newspapers. 

88.  Minutes  of  the  Big  Springs  Convention,  a  pamphlet  in  the  Kansas  Historical 
Society;  see  also  Andreas,  pp.  108-109. 

^  89.  Cited  in  Robinson,  pp.  172-173;  see  also  Robinson,  pp.  140-142,  for  a  criti; 
cism  of  the  Garrisonian  attitude  toward  the  Robinsonian  policy  in  Kansas. 

90.  Horace  Greeley,  editorial  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Sept.  21,  1855. 
[ «  91.  Reese  MS.;  Andreas,  pp.  111-112. 


NOTES  601 

92.  Reese  MS.;  Andreas,  p.  112. 

93.  Cf.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  101;  Reese  MS. 

94.  Andreas,  p.  109;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Sept.  21,  1855;  Wilder's  Annals,  p.  61. 

-  95.  Andreas,  p.  no.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  also  a  member  of  the  Executive 
Committee  appointed  by  the  Lawrence  convention  of  Aug.  14-15,  1855,  but  this 
was  not  a  delegate  convention.  —  Wilder,  p.  55. 

96.  Reese  MS. 

97.  Ibid.;  also  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol. 
I,  p.  272. 

98.  Howard  Report,  pp.  44-45. 

99.  Andreas,  p.  in;  Wilder,  p.  67. 

100.  Andreas,  p.  122;  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  pp.  126,  2OI. 

101.  Howard  Report,  p.  53;  Andreas,  pp.  111-112. 

102.  Howard  Report,  pp.  53-54. 

103.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  26,  1855;  Wilder,  p.  70;  Andreas,  p.  114;  Phillips, 
pp.  148-149. 

104.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  74:  "From  the  spring  and 
summer  of  1854  to  the  establishment  of  a  legitimate  territorial  government  by 
the  success  of  the  free-state  men  and  actual  settlers  in  the  election  of  1857  and 
1858,  the  territory  was  practically  without  law  and  legal  machinery,  aside  from 
the  territorial  judges  and  marshal  appointed  by  the  president."  —  W.  H.  T. 
Wakefield.    See  also  Howard  Report,  p.  1026,  testimony  of  D.  J.  Johnson.    Mr. 
A.  H.  Case,  of  Topeka,  long  a  leader  of  the  Kansas  bar,  with  a  large  practice  in 
criminal  cases,  testifies  that  it  was  some  time  after  his  arrival  in  July,   1858, 
before  any  one  was  prosecuted  for  murder,  "although  they  were  prosecuted  for 
stealing  cattle."  —  Statement  of  Aug.  16,  1908,  in  Topeka,  Kansas,  to  K.  Mayo. 

105.  Howard  Report,  p.  64. 

106.  Webb's  Scrap-Book,  vol.  2,  pp.  59, 155;  Martin,  First  Two  Years  of  Kansas, 
p.  n ;  Howard  Report,  pp.  1162-1163. 

107.  Andreas,  p.  99;  Leavenworth  Herald,  May  4,  1855;  Howard  Report,  pp. 
965-970. 

108.  For  story  of  McCrea's  trial  and  escape,  see  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Oct.  2,  6,  8, 
and  17,  1855;  also  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson's  Kansas,  pp.  104-105,  112-113,  126-127; 
also  Howard  Report,  pp.  967-968,  970;  also  Andreas,  p.  425.    For  Chief  Justice 
Lecompte's  defence  of  himself,  see  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8, 

pp.  389-405- 

109.  Howard  Report,  p.  1026,  testimony  of  D.  J.  Johnson, 
no.  Howard  Report,  testimony  of  R.  R.  Rees,  pp.  970-972. 

in.  Personal  Recollections  of  Pardee  Butler,  N.  Y.   Tribune,  May  19,  1856, 
Aug.  30,  1855;  Phillips,  pp.  145-147;  Howard  Report,  pp.  960-963. 

112.  Phillips,  p.  145;  Squatter  Sovereign,  Aug.  7,  1855,  cited  in  N.  Y.  Tribune, 
Aug.  23,  1855;  Howard  Report,  pp.  960-962. 

113.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  3,  1855. 

114.  To  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Osawatomie,  K.  T.,  Oct.  13  and  14,  1855.  —  Origi 
nal  in  possession  of  Kansas  Historical  Society. 


602  NOTES 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  LIBERTY   GUARDS 

1.  Mrs.  Jason  Brown  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Osawatomie,  November  25,  1855, 

—  original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown;  letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  the  Cleve 
land  Leader,  November  29,  1883. 

2.  Letter  of  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Brownsville,  November  30,  1855, 

—  original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger;  also  letter  of  December 
16  from  the  same  to  the  same, — original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society;  John 
Brown  to  his  father,  Brownsville,  November  9,  1855,  —  original  in  possession 
of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark. 

3.  Phillips,  Conquest  of  Kansas,  pp.  141-144;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  November  13, 
20,  1855;  Holloway,  pp.  208-209;  John  H.  Gihon,  Geary  and  Kansas,  Philadel 
phia,  1857,  pp.  47-48.    For  another  version  of  this  affair,  attributing  the  killing 
of  Collins  to  one  Lynch,  see  N.  Y.  Tribune,  February  16,  1856. 

4.  For  the  killing  of  Dow  and  the  arrest  and  rescue  of  Branson,  see  letter  of 
S.  N.  Wood  to  Augustus  Wattles,  August  29,  1857,  quoted  in  Robinson's  Kansas 
Conflict,  pp.  184-186;  Howard  Report,  pp.  59-60,  1040  et  seq.;  Mrs.  Robinson, 
p.  105  et  seq.   For  Coleman's  narrative,  see  G.  Douglas  Brewerton,  The  War  in 
Kansas,  New  York,  1856,  p.  223  et  seq.;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Dec.  31,  1855. 

5.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  December  8,  1855;  Robinson,  pp.  188-189;  Mrs.  Robinson, 
pp.  109-111. 

6.  Testimony  of  L.  A.  Prather,  Howard  Report,  p.  1065  et  seq.;  Mrs.  Robin 
son,  p.  109;  Phillips,  pp.  162-163. 

7.  Executive  Minutes  of  Gov.  Shannon,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publica 
tions,  vol.  i,  p.  98. 

8.  Shannon  to  Franklin  Pierce,  November  28,  1855,  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  101;  Shannon  to  Richardson  and  to  Strickler,  ibid.,  pp. 
99-100. 

9.  Affidavit  of  Hargis  (otherwise  Hargus  or  Hargous)  in  regard  to  the  burning. 
See  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  244-245;  see  also  Howard 
Report,  pp.  60,  1044,  1051,  1059,  1064,  1107;  also,  Brewerton,  p.  150. 

10.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  pp.  99-100,   Shannon  to 
Major-General  W.  P.  Richardson  and  General  H.  J.  Strickler,  November  27, 

1855- 

11.  Executive  Minutes,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  102; 
Brewerton,  p.  164. 

12.  Brewerton,  p.  166. 

13.  Brewerton,  p.  164;  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  105;  Charles  Robinson  placed  the 
number  of  Kansas  residents  enrolled  in  the  pro-slavery  forces  at  fifty,  Howard  Re 
port,  p.  1072;  Phillips,  p.  185,  estimated  it  as  never  exceeding  seventy-five  or 
eighty;  Sheriff  Jones  gave  it  as  "not  more  than  150  or  200."   See  also  Howard 
Report,  testimony  of  James  F.  Legate,  p.  1095;  Andreas  says:  "There  were  some 
fifty  pro-slavery  residents  —  the  Kickapoo  Rangers,  in  the  command." 

14.  Telegram  to  St.  Louis  Republican  dated  Kansas,  Thursday,  December  6, 
1855,  quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune,  December  IO. 

15.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  December  12,  1855;  Andreas,  p.  117;  see  also  Kickapoo 
City  Pioneer,  November  28,  1855:  "To  Arms!  To  Arms!  The  Enemy  is  in  the 
Field.  Up,  Citizens.  Up,  Pro-slavery  Men.  Up,  Southerners.   Up,  Law  and  Or 
der  Men!" 


NOTES ;  603 

„  16.  Howard  Report,  p.  1096. 

:  17.  Howard  Report,  testimony  of  J.  M.  Winchell,  pp.  1088  and  1090;  ibid., 
testimony  of  James  S.  Legate,  p.  1095;  ibid.,  testimony  of  Gov.  Shannon,  p.  1109; 
Cordley,  p.  54;  Gihon,  p.  58;  Andreas,  p.  118;  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  105. 

1 8.  See  Missouri  Democrat,  cited  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  December  31,  1855. 
I  19.  Andreas,  p.  119;  Phillips,  pp.  171-172,  181;  Cordley,  p.  56. 

20.  Howard  Report,  pp.  60  and  1129-1131. 

21.  Cordley,  pp.  52,  59-61;  Phillips,  pp.  174-176;  Holloway,  p.  219;  Andreas, 
p.  118. 

22.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Osawatomie,  K.  T.,  December  16,  1855, 
—  original  in  possession  of  Kansas  Historical  Society;  see  also  letter  of  S.   L. 
Adair,  Osawatomie,  Dec.  9,  1855,  to  Owen  Brown  in  Hudson,  — original  in  pos 
session  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 

23.  Howard  Report,  p.  62. 

24.  Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

25.  Original  certificate  of  service,  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.;  see 
also  Andreas,  p.  121. 

26.  Letter  of  R.  G.  Elliott  to  K.  Mayo,  Lawrence,  August  6,  1908. 

27.  James  F.  Legate,  in  the  Leavenworth  Weekly  Press,  October  23,  1879;  John 
Brown  Scrap-Book,  vol.  I,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

28.  Ibid.;  see  also  statement  of  George  Leis,  Lawrence,  Nov.  30,  1909,  for  the 
author. 

29.  John  Brown  to  Orson  Day,  Brown's  Station,  December  14, 1855,  from  copy 
in  J.  H.  Holmes  Papers  in  possession  of  the  author. 

30.  For  the  varying  accounts  of  the  meeting  and  the  speeches,  see  Phillips, 
p.  222;  letter  of  R.  G.  Elliott  to  Miss  Mayo;  statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Decem 
ber  13  and  14,  1908;  letter  of  Salmon  Brown  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  Portland,  Oregon, 
July  8,  1901;  statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  Portland,  Oregon,  October  II,  1908; 
Reminiscences  of  Old  John  Brown,  by  G.  W.  Brown,  M.  D.,  Rockford,  111.,  1880, 
p.  8;  statement  of  E.  A.  Coleman,  Sanborn,  p.  220;  Herald  of  Freedom,  October 
10,  1857. 

31.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.  13  and  14,  1908,  confirmed  by  Salmon 
Brown;  G.  W.  Brown,  Reminiscences  of  Old  John  Brown,  p.  8. 

32.  Robinson,  pp.  207,  217. 

33.  R.  G.  Elliott.    In  a  statement  of  July  27,  1908,  at  Lawrence,  Kansas,  to 
K.  Mayo,  Mr.  Elliott  says:  "The  people  would  never  have  submitted  to  the 
Shannon  treaty  had  they  understood  its  nature.    It  is  also  believed  that  if  John 
Brown's  policy  of  attack  had  been  followed,  it  would  have  been  very  bad  for 
the  Free  State  cause." 

34.  Andreas,  p.  119;  Phillips,  p.  225;  Robinson,  p.  204.   For  Shannon's  Expla 
nation,  see  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  248. 

35.  Phillips,  p.  227;  Howard  Report,  pp.  62,  1126;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  December  29, 
1855;  L.  Spring,  Magazine  of  Western  History,  vol.  9,  p.  80;  for  Jones's  statement, 
see  Report  on  Kansas  Claims,  signed  by  E.  Hoogland,  H.  J.  Adams  and  S.  A. 
Kingman,  a  committee  of  the  Kansas  Legislature,  p.  62.    This  long  report  was 
published  in  Report  No.  104,  House  of  Representatives,  36th  Congress,  2<d  session, 
Washington,  1861. 

36.  Phillips,  pp.  226-227. 
\    37.  Ibid.,  p.  228. 

38.  For  Shannon's  letter  and  the  authority  given  Robinson  and  Lane,  see 
Brewerton,  pp.  197-201;  see  also  Governor  Shannon's  Explanation,  Kansas  His 
torical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  247-249.  ' 


604  NOTES 

39.  Howard  Report  contains  eight  testimonies;  see  also  Gihon,  pp.  65-70; 
Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  144-146  and  160-163;  Brewerton,  pp.  137,  306,  329,  for  state 
ments  of  Barber's  widow  and  other  relatives;  Phillips,  p.  211  et  seq. 

40.  James  F.  Legate,  Leavenworth  Weekly  Press,  October  23,  1879. 

41.  John  Brown  to  Orson  Day,  December  14,  1855. 

42.  Letter  to  wife  and  children  from  "  Westpoint,"  Mo.,  January  I,  1856. — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

43.  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Osawatomie,  Jan.  6,  1856,  — 
original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown;  Henry  Thompson  to  Ruth  Brown  Thomp 
son,  Brown's  Station,  K.  T.,  January  6,  1856,  — original  in  possession  of  Miss 
Mary  E.  Thompson.    Frederick  Brown  was  the  nominee  of  the  meeting,  but  at 
the  request  of  the  chairman,  John  Brown,  who  urged  that  the  elder  brother  would 
make  a  better  representative,  having  greater  knowledge  of  such  matters,  the  vote 
was  given  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  —  statement  of  Henry  Thompson,  September, 
1908. 

44.  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Osawatomie,  January  6,  1856. 

45.  Ibid.;  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Osawatomie,  Feb.  I,  1856, — 
original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society;  letter  to  his  father,  Brownsville,  Nov.  9, 
1855, —original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark,  Berea,  Ky.;  letter  of  Jason 
Brown  to  his  grandfather,  Owen  Brown,  Osawatomie,  Jan.  23,  1856, — original 
in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark. 

46.  Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  171-174;  Gihon,  pp.  71-72;  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  7,  p.  525;  Howard  Report,  many  testimonies;  and  p.  63  et  seq.; 
Charles  Robinson,  p.  222;  Andreas,  pp.  124,  426;  Phillips,  pp.  240-246. 

47.  Quoted  in  Andreas,  p.  125. 

48.  Quoted  in  Wilder,  p.  91. 

49.  Quoted  in  Andreas,  p.  125;  Webb's  Scrap-Book;  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  19;  also  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  February  2,  1856. 

50.  Mrs,  Robinson,  p.  167;  Howard  Report,  p.  969;  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  7,  p.  525. 

l    51.  Andreas,  p.  124;  Holloway,  pp.  275-276. 
,    52.  Andreas,  p.  125;  Holloway,  p.  278. 

53.  Letter  of  Henry  Thompson  to  Ruth  Brown  Thompson,  January  26,  1856. 
—  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

54.  Now    first  published.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Kate  Giddings, 
Jefferson,  Ohio. 

55.  John  Brown  to  his  father,  Owen  Brown,  Osawatomie,  January  19,  1856.  — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis. 

56.  Jason  Brown  to  his  grandfather,  Osawatomie,  Jan.  23,   1856. — Original 
in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark;  also  to  Orson  Day,  February  21,  1856. 

57.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society.   See  Sanborn,  p.  224. 

58.  Andreas,  p.  125;  Executive  Minutes  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  104. 

59.  Reese's  MS.;  St.  Louis  Democrat,  quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  March  27, 
1856;  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  6,  p.  298. 

60.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Osawatomie,  March  6,  1856.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  Tuskegee  Institute,  Tuskegee,  Alabama. 

61.  Letter  of  H.  H.  Williams  to  C.  A.  Foster,  Foster  MS.,  in  Kansas  Historical 
Society;  for  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  own  account  of  the  proceedings  of  this  Legisla 
ture,  and  of  his  part  therein,  see  his  letter  to  his  grandparents,  Brown's  Station, 
Osawatomie,  without  date,  —  original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark. 

62.  Miscellaneous  Documents,  No.  82,  House  of  Representatives,  34th  Con 
gress,  1st  session. 


NOTES  605 

63.  Kansas  Tribune,  March  5  and  12,  1856;  see  also  letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr., 
to  his  grandparents,  above  cited. 

64.  Letter  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Ruth  Brown  Thompson,  Brown's  Sta 
tion,  April  8,  1856.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

65.  Letter  of  Henry  Thompson  to  his  wife,  Brown's  Station,  March  23,  1856. 
—  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

66.  Henry  Thompson  to  his  wife,  April  16,  1856.  —  Original  in  possession  of 
Miss  Thompson. 

67.  Henry  Thompson  to  his  wife,  May,  1856.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Miss 
Thompson. 

68.  This  account  of  the  Settlers'  Meeting  has  been  drawn  from  the  letter  of 
S.  L.  Adair  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  Osawatomie,  July  9,   1894;  statements  by  Henry 
Thompson,  August  and  September,  1908;  the  speech  of  Martin  White,  which  will 
be  found  in  the  Leavenworth,  Kansas,  Journal  of  March  12,  1857;  also  'The 
Settlers'  Meeting  and  Protest  of  April  16,  1856,  in  Osawatomie,'  by  O.  C.  Brown, 
a  participant,  Adams,  N.  Y.,  October,  1895,  a  MS.  now  in  the  O.  C.  Brown 
Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

69.  The  resolutions  as  given  here  are  taken  from  the  Kansas  Free  State,  pub 
lished  in  Lawrence,  May  5,  1856. 

70.  Statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  October  II,  1908. 

71.  From  a  copy  of  the  original,  taken  by  James  H.  Holmes. 

72.  'The  Settlement  of  Lane  and  Vicinity,'  MS.  by  James  Hanway,  in  Han- 
way  Miscellanies,  vol.  4,  Kansas  Historical  Society.  "I  was  in  sight  but  in  the 
background  when  our  committee  served  the  resolutions  on  the  Judge.    He  made 
no  reply.    There  was  a  little  side- work  done  to  intimidate  that  Jury  in  a  secret 
way  on  our  part  that  never  got  out  to  the  public."  —  Salmon  Brown  to  J.  H. 
Holmes,  Portland,  January  28,  1903,  —  original  in  possession  of  the  author. 

73.  Statement   of   Salmon    Brown,  October,    n,    1908;  MS.   of  John   Brown 
entitled  '  An  Idea  of  Things  in  Kansas,'  in  possession  of  the  Kansas  Historical 
Society;  statement  of  Jason  Brown,  December  13-14,  1908;  statement  of  Henry 
Thompson,  August,  1908. 

74.  See  'The  Buford  Expedition  to  Kansas,'  by  Walter  L.  Fleming,  American 
Historical  Review  for  October,  1900;  see  also  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  5  and  10,  1856; 
Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  216-217. 

75.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  13,  1856. 

76.  Fleming,  American  Historical  Review,  October,  1900. 

77.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  2,  1856. 

78.  See,  for  instance,  Greeley's  editorial  of  March  7,  1856. 

79.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  5,  1856.   An  example  of  the  recruiting  that  went  on 
at  this  time  in  the  South  is  afforded  by  a  circular  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
author  dated  June  12,  1856: 

"TO  ALL  TRUE 
SOUTHERN   MEN!  !" 

Shall  Kansas  be  surrendered  to  the  A  bolitionists  ? 

Shall  we  sit  down  in  idleness  and  permit  our  enemies  to  wall  up  Southern 
institutions,  and  thus  endanger  our  existence  as  a  people?  We  have  the  ability 
to  prevent  it  —  Do  we  lack  the  patriotism  ? 

Massachusetts  says  we  must  be  driven  out.  Her  Legislature  has  just  appro 
priated  $20,000  to  effect  this  purpose,  and  her  people  propose  to  raise  imme 
diately  by  private  efforts  $100,000  more.  These  people  are  engaged  in  the  busi 
ness  of  fanaticism  and  treason.  Will  Alabamians  be  less  liberal  in  maintaining 


606  NOTES 

their  substantial,  vital  rights  under  the  Constitution?  —  Shall  we  turn  our  backs 
on  the  brave  Missourians  who  stretch  out  their  hands  to  us  for  help  in  a  common 
cause?  If  we  intend  to  do  anything  now  is  the  time.  This  is  a  living,  pressing  issue. 
Is  it  possible  that  we  are  dead  to  its  importance?  Southern  Freemen  must  be  true 
to  themselves.  We  know  there  are  men  among  us  who  discourage  this  great  move 
ment  to  save  the  South,  by  predictions  of  failure  and  inability  to  succeed.  Down 
with  such  men.  Turn  from  them  as  our  worst  enemies  and  let  all  true  men  unite 
in  crushing  out  this  spirit  of  submission  to  abolition  aggression  and  willingness 
to  surrender  Southern  Rights  without  a  struggle. 

Messrs.  BAKER  &  JOHNSTON, 

Who  have  been  aiding  in  emigrating  Southern  men  to  Kansas,  have  just  returned 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  more  men  and  money.  H.  D.  CLAYTON,  ESQ.,  AND 
DR.  JOSEPH  JONES,  will  accompany  and  assist  them  in  this  enterprise.  They 
are  prepared  to  give  reliable  and  valuable  information,  and  for  these  purposes 
will  meet  and  address  the  people  at  the  following  times  and  places. 

The  meetings  were  to  be  held  throughout  July  at  twenty-four  places,  among 
them  Tuskegee  and  Mount  Meigs,  where  are  now  located  industrial  schools  for 
the  freed  negroes. 

80.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  March  3,  1856. 

81.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Jan.  19,  1856. 

82.  The  best  accounts  of  Sheriff  Jones's  activity  in  Lawrence  and  his  wounding 
are  to  be  found  in  Andreas;  Mrs.  Robinson;  the  official  report  of  Lieut.  James 
Mclntosh,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  pp.  418-419;  the  N.  Y. 
Tribune;  and  Phillips;  see  also  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  410. 
For  pro-slavery  side  see  H.  C.  Pate's  letter  to  St.  Louis  Republican,  dated  April  14, 
1856, 9  P.  M.  ;  also  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  pp.  414-416;  Shannon 
to  Pierce.  The  Life  of  Gen.  J.  H.  Lane,  by  John  Speer,  Garden  City,  Kansas,  1897, 
PP-  77~8o,  is  also  of  value. 

83.  Sworn  testimony  of  three  members  of  Jones's  posse,  April  28,  1856;  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  410. 

84.  See  letters  of  Frank  B.  Swift  and  B.  W.  Woodward,  of  Lawrence,  in  the 
Western  Home  Journal  of  Lawrence,  November  20,  1879;  also  letter  of  Philip  W. 
Woodward  to  F.  G.  Adams  from  Leavenworth,  September  18,  1897.    Woodward, 
a  room-mate  of  Filer  at  the  time  of  the  shooting,  loaned  him  his  revolver.   Filer 
returned  it  later,  saying  that  he  had  shot  Jones.    Not  unnaturally,  Filer  subse 
quently  denied  this.    He  soon  left  Kansas  and  returned  to  New  York.    Lenhart 
died  during  the  Civil  War  as  first  lieutenant  of  the  Second  Indian  Regiment  of 
the  Federal  army. 

85.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  8,  1856;  Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  201-202;  Andreas,  p.  126. 

86.  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  210;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  13;  Phillips,  p.  258;  N.  Y. 
Evening  Post,  May  13,  1856. 

"Such  a  state  of  things  as  this  maddens  men  and  throws  them  back  upon  their 
own  resources  for  redress.  And  it  is  dreadful  to  see  how  all  the  evil  passions  rise 
and  rage  at  the  recital  of  these  terrible  outrages  so  near  home.  Children  catch 
fire  and  give  vent  to  the  undisguised  feelings  of  their  souls  in  words  which  under 
other  circumstances  would  seem  terrible.  O,  the  depth  of  revenge  in  the  human 
heart  when  the  powers  that  should  execute  justice  not  only  connive  at  the  wrong, 
but  abet  and  help  it  on,  and  screen  the  offender.  May  Heaven  grant  us  deliver 
ance  soon."  --  S.  L.  Adair,  Osawatomie,  May  16,  1856,  to  Owen  Brown  in  Hud 
son,  —  original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 


NOTES  607 

87.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  15,  1856. 

88.  For  Butler's  own  story,  see  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  19,  1856;  see  also  Gihon, 
p.  75  et  seq.;  Phillips,  p.  259  et  seq. 

89.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  157;   vol.  5,  pp.  81-82; 
Gihon,  pp.  82-83;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  238;  Phillips,  p.  286;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June 
5,  1856. 

90.  Lexington  Express,  May  20,  1859;  Missouri  Republican,  June  26,  1856: 
Hinton,  pp.  78-80;  Gihon,  p.  83;  Phillips,  pp.  286-287.   Stewart  was  formerly  of 
Bushford,  Allegany  County,  N.  Y.  See  N.  Y.  Evening  Post,  June  9,  1856. 

91.  Andreas,  pp.  127-128;  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  156;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  19,  1856; 
Charles  Robinson,  p.  234  et  seq.;  for  'Letter  from  a  Grand  Juror,'  see  N.  Y. 
Tribune,  June  9,  1856. 

92.  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  267  et  seq.;  Charles  Robinson,  pp.  237-239. 

'    93.  Reeder's  Diary,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  13  et 
seq. 

94.  Memorial  to  the  President  from  Inhabitants  of  Kansas,  Kansas  Historical 
Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  392. 

95.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  394;  Andreas,  p.  128;  Cord- 
ley,  p.  93;  Phillips,  p.  276;  Holloway,  p.  317. 

96.  Phillips,  p.  278;  Holloway,  p.  319;  Andreas,  pp.  128-129;  Kansas  Histori 
cal  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  394. 

97.  Andreas,  p.  129;  Holloway,  p.  329;  Phillips,  pp.  289-290;  Gihon,  p.  82; 
N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  4,  1856;  W  M.  Paxton,  Annals  ofPlatte  County,  Mo.,  Kan 
sas  City,  1897,  pp.  212-214. 

98.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  158. 

99.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  pp.  397-399;  Andreas,  pp.  129- 
130;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  238. 

100.  The  author's  story  of  the  Lawrence  raid  is  drawn  from  the  following 
sources:  Memorial  to  the  President  from  Inhabitants  of  Kansas,  Kansas  His 
torical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  392  et  seq.;  Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  240-248; 
Phillips,  pp.  289-309;  Gihon,  pp.  83-86;  Holloway,  pp.  329-338;  Cordley,  pp. 
99-103;  Andreas,  p.  130;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  29,  30,  June  2,  3,  4,  7,  9,  13,  19,  20; 
St.  Louis  Democrat,  May  27,  1856.    For  a  statement  of  some  of  the  brutalities 
committed  by  the  Border  Ruffians,  see  R.  H.  Williams's  With  the  Border  Ruffians, 
the  story  of  an  Englishman  who  served  under  Atchison  at  the  taking  of  Lawrence, 
pp.  83-86;  see  also  testimony  of  John  A.  Perry  before  the  Congressional  Com 
mittee,  N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  26,  1856.  Details  of  the  needless  looting  and  destruc 
tion  of  property  are  sworn  to  by  many  witnesses  in  the  Report  on  Kansas  Claims 
already  referred  to.  This  is  a  store-house  of  valuable  information  as  to  the 
property  loss  inflicted  on  both  sides  from  November  I,  1855,  to  December  I, 
1856. 

101.  Statement  of  Robert  G.  Elliott,  July  27,  1908;  Phillips,  p.  299;  James  F. 
Legate,  Kansas  Memorial,  p.  63. 

102.  Andreas,  p.  130;  Phillips,  p.  299;  Holloway,  pp.  336-337. 

103.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  401;  Phillips,  pp.  296- 
297;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  2;  Holloway,  p.  333. 

104.  Eli  Thayer,  History  of  the  Kansas  Crusade,  New  York,  1889,  p.  211. 

105.  Horace  Greeley,  N.  Y.  Tribune,  May  21,  1856. 


6o8  NOTES 


CHAPTER  V 
MURDER   ON  THE   POTTAWATOMIE 

Besides  the  personal  narratives  of  two  of  the  participants  in  the  Pottawatomie 
murders,  Henry  Thompson  and  Salmon  Brown,  the  author  has  been  fortunate  in 
finding  three  members  of  the  Grant  family  alive  to  give  their  testimony,  and  has 
consulted  in  addition  no  less  than  fifty-six  narratives  of  early  settlers,  including 
those  of  H.  H.  Williams,  James  Blood,  August  Bondi,  John  Speer,  John  T.  Grant, 
James  Hanway,  O.  C.  Brown,  Martin  White,  H.  C.  Pate  and  others  who  had  a 
more  or  less  intimate  knowledge  of  conditions  as  they  existed  at  the  time  of  the 
murders.  Jason  Brown's  story,  that  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Townsley's  statements 

I  and  the  testimonies  in  the  Oliver  minority  report  of  the  Howard  Committee  have 
also  been  drawn  upon,  as  well  as  contemporary  newspaper  publications,  besides 

\  all  the  lives  of  Brown  and  histories  of  Kansas.  It  is  believed  that  the  narrative 
here  given  is  the  first  complete  story  of  the  crime. 

1.  Sanborn,  pp.  236-237. 

2.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  the  Cleveland  Leader,  November  29,  1883. 

4  •  3.  Letter  of  Henry  H.  Williams,  July  20,  1856,  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  August  20, 
1856.  Cf.  also,  narrative  of  Captain  Samuel  Anderson,  a  member  of  the  com 
pany,  in  the  Hyatt  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

4.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Cleveland  Leader,  Nov.  29,  1883. 

5.  H.  H.  Williams,  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Aug.  20,  1856;  James  Hanway,  of  Capt. 
John  Brown,  Jr.'s  company,  in  Lawrence  Daily  Journal,  November  27,  1879. 

6.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Cleveland  Leader,  Nov.  29,  1883;  H.  H.  Williams,  N.  Y. 
Tribune,  Aug.  20,  1856;  C.  A.  Foster,  ^member  of  the  Pottawatomie  Rifles,  to 
F.  G.  Adams,  April  15,  1895,  Foster  MS.,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

7.  Letter  of  Jason  Brown,  Osawatomie,  June  28,  1856,  to  the  family  at  North 
Elba,  —  original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson,  used  here  for  the  first  time; 
official  report  of  Second  Lieut.  John  R.  Church,  First  U.  S.  Cavalry,  May  26,  1856, 
Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  421.   Lieut.  Church  dwells  upon 
the  fact  that  the  presence  of  the  Free  State  companies  had  frightened  away  two 
families.   One  of  these  was  undoubtedly  that  whose  slaves  were  freed  by  John 
Brown,  Jr. 

8.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Cleveland  Leader,  Nov.  29,  1883;  Jason  Brown's  state 
ment  of  December  13-14,  1908;  statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  October  u,  1908. 

9.  Jason  Brown  to  F.  G.  Adams,  April  2,  1884,  at  College  Hill,  Topeka,    in 
Kansas  Historical  Society;  statement  of  Jason  Brown,  December  13,  1908. 

10.  Statement  of  December  13,  1908. 

11.  Martin  Van  Buren  Jackson  to  W.  E.  Connelley,  November  6,  1900,  in 
Mr.  Connelley 's  possession. 

12.  Statement  of  October  11,  1908.   In  a  letter  to  Eli  Thayer,  dated  Fort  Scott, 
August  4,  1879,  George  A.  Crawford  states  that  John  Brown,  in  Brown's  camp 
at  Trading  Post,  Linn  County,  Kansas,  early  in  January,  1859,  speaking  to  him 
of  the  Pottawatomie  killings,  said  that  "the  death  of  those  pro-slavery  men  had 
been  determined  upon  at  a  meeting  of  free-state  settlers  the  day  before  —  that 
he  was  present  at  the  meeting  and,  I  think,  presided,  and  that  the  executioners 
were  then  and  there  appointed."  —  Original  in  G.  W.  Brown  Papers,  in  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

13.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  279;  Bondi's  MS.  narrative, 
in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 


NOTES  609 

14.  Hanway  to  Hinton,   December   5,    1859.  —  Original  in  Hinton  Papers, 
Kansas  Historical  Society. 

15.  Besides  Salmon  Brown,  the  following  testify  to  the  cheering  that  greeted  • 
the  departure  of  the  little  company:  Jason  Brown,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  James 
Hanway.   See  Hanway  to  Redpath,  March  12,  1860,  quoted  in  Andreas,  p.  604. 

16.  It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  J.  G.  Grant  testifies  that  H.  H.  Williams  urged 
George  Grant  to  keep  out  of  the  expedition  because  "something  rash"  was  going 
to  be  done.   Statement  of  J.  G.  Grant,  San  Francisco,  Oct.  7,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

17.  Confession  of  Townsley,  written  out  by  Attorney  Hutchings  on  December 
4,  1879,  and  published  in  the  Lawrence  Daily  Journal,  December  10,  1879.  Other 
confessions  of  Townsley,  varying  slightly  from  the  above,  have  also  been  drawn 
upon.   Johnson  Clarke's  version  of  Townsley 's  confession  is  in  the  United  States 
Biographical  Dictionary,  Kansas  volume,  1879,  p.  526;  a  third  version  is  in  An 
dreas,  pp.  603-604,  this  having  been  made  Aug.  3,  1882. 

18.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  Cleveland  Press,  May  3,  1895;  statement  of  Jason 
Brown,  December    13,  1908.    "Gen."  Bierce's  title  came  from  a  northern  Ohio 
secret  society,  the  "Grand  Eagles,"  organized  to  attack  the  Canadian  Govern 
ment.  The  arms  given  by  Bierce  to  John  Brown  had  belonged  to  this  society, 
and  included  artillery  broadswords  that  bore  either  on  hilt  or  blade  the  device  of 
an  eagle,  and  which  were  the  identical  weapons  used  in  the  Pottawatomie  kill 
ings.    See  Jason  Brown's  statement  of  December  28,  1908;  Western  Reserve  His 
torical  Society  Tracts,  vol.  2,  pp.  4-5;  for  Bierce's  own  statement  of  his  gift  of 
arms  to  John  Brown,  see  address  delivered  at  Akron,  Ohio,  on  'The  Execution 
of  John  Brown,'  Columbus,  1865. 

19.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Jason  Brown. 

20.  Statement  of  George  Grant,  San  Jose",  Cal.,  September  25, 1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

21.  Statement  of  Dr.  W.  B.  Fuller  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  December  7,  1903,  in  pos 
session  of  author. 

22.  James  H.  Hanway  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  December  5,  1859,  Hinton  Papers, 
Kansas  Historical  Society. 

23.  See  'Old  John  Brown,'  by  Capt.  J.  M.  Anthony,  Leavenworth  Weekly 
Times,  February  14,  1884. 

24.  Colonel  James  Blood,  Lawrence,  November  29,  1879,  to  G.  W.  Brown, 
published  in  Leavenworth   Weekly  Press,  December  4,   1879.    Neither  Salmon 
Brown  nor  Henry  Thompson  can  remember  this  meeting  with  Colonel  Blood. 
But  as  Colonel  Blood  gave  his  testimony  with  unswerving  precision  on  several 
occasions,  and  made  his  original  statement  before  the  appearance  of  Townsley's 
confession,  the  author  is  of  the  opinion  that  it  must  be  accepted  as  correct,  par 
ticularly  in  view  of  the  accuracy  of   his  detailed  description  of  the  party  he 
met. 

25.  Townsley,  December  6,  1879. 

26.  Statement  of  Henry  Thompson,  August  and  September,  1908. 

27.  Statement  of  Mrs.  B.  F.  Jackson,  Topeka,  Kansas,  August,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 
But  Henry  Sherman's  character  was  not  so  black  as  to  keep  the  Commission 
ers  on  Kansas  Claims  from  awarding  $1035  damages  to  the  administrator  of 
his  estate  for  cattle  taken  illegally  by  John  Brown  and  others  (Report,  vol.  3, 
Part  2,  pp.  1184-1190). 

28.  Letter  of  Maggie  Moore  and  Mahala  Doyle  to  A.  A.  Lawrence,  Chatta 
nooga,  May  26,  1885,  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Library. 

29.  Joint  interview  of  G.  W.  and  Henry  Grant,  given  in  Lawrence  Journal 
office,  December  4,  1879,  and  published  the  next  day. 

30.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Cleveland  Leader,  November  29,   1883;  statement  of 


6io  NOTES 

Henry  Thompson,  August,  1908;  statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  October,  1908; 
statement  of  Jason  Brown,  December  13,  1908;  E.  A.  Coleman,  in  The  Kansas 
Memorial,  a  report  of  the  Old  Settlers'  Meeting  at  Bismarck,  Grove,  Kansas, 
Charles  S.  Gleed,  Editor,  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  1880,  pp.  196-197. 

31.  John  Brown  as  viewed  by  Henry  Clay  Pate,  New  York,  1859  (pamphlet). 

32.  Martin  White,  Speech  in  the  Kansas  House  of  Representatives,  reported  in 
the  Leavenworth  Journal,  March  12,  1857. 

33.  Oliver  Minority  Report  to  the  Howard  Committee  Report,  pp.  105-106. 

34.  Statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  October,  1908. 

35.  Ibid.;  also  statement  of  Jason  Brown,  December,  1908. 
f    36.  Howard  Report  Appendix,  ex  parte  testimony,  p.  1193. 
'    37.  Ibid.,  pp.  1194-1195. 

•    38.  Ibid.,  pp.  1197-1198^ 
,    39.  Ibid.,  pp.  1195-1197. 

40.  Virginia  Magazine  of  History  and  Biography,  July,  1902,  pp.  31-32. 

41.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown  to  K.  Mayo;  also  his  statement  to  F.  G.  Adams, 
Topeka,  April  2,  1884. 

42.  Jason  Brown  to  K.  Mayo,  December,  1908. 

43.  Jason  Brown;  Salmon  Brown. 

"   44.  Statement  of  J.  G.  Grant,  San  Francisco,  October  7,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

45.  Reprinted  in  Overbrook  (Kansas)  Citizen,  June  25,  1908,  from  Watertown 
(New  York)  Reformer  of  1856. 

46.  O.  C.  Brown  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

47.  H.  L.  Jones   to   F.    G.   Adams,   January  20,  1879,   in  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

48.  George  Thompson,  Twin  Mound,  Kansas,  July  30,  1894,  in  J.  H.  Holmes 
Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

49.  Also  found  in  Andreas,  p.  132. 

50.  Shannon  to  Pierce,  Lecompton,  May  31,  1856,  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  4,  pp.  414-418. 

51.  Lawrence  Journal,  December  n,  1879. 

52.  Correspondence  of  John  Sedgwick,  Major-General,  privately  printed  for 
C.  and  E.  B.  Stoeckel,  1903,  vol.  2,  pp.  8-9.    Governor  Robinson  testified  that 
Major  Sedgwick  was  not  only  very  kind  to  the  Free  State  prisoners  at  Leaven- 
worth,  but  a  warm  sympathizer  with  their  cause.   Major  Sedgwick  was,  of  coursd 
misled,  in  one  respect:  there  was  no  mutilation  of  the  Pottawatomie  victims. 

53.  Original  in  Hanway  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

54.  MS.  by  James  Hanway,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society.    At  the  meeting  of 
the  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  Lawrence,  Dec.  19,  1859  (reported  in  the  New  York 
Herald  of  Jan.  2,  1860),  Governor  Robinson  said:  "It  made  no  difference  whether 
he  [Brown]  raised  his  hand  or  otherwise;  [at  Pottawatomie]  he  was  present,  aid 
ing  and  advising  to  it,  and  did  not.  attempt  to  stop  the  bloodshed,  and  is,  of  course, 
responsible,  though  justifiable,  according  to  his  understanding  of  affairs."    Rob 
inson  also  stated  in  this  meeting  that  he  himself  thought  the  murders  justifiable 
at  the  time.  The  Anti-Slavery  Society,  after  the  discussion,  voted  that  the  mur 
ders  were  not  unjustifiable,  and  that  they  were  performed  "from  the  sad  neces 
sity  ...  to  defend  the  lives  and  liberties  of  the  settlers  in  that  region." 

55.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful   Yesterdays,  pp.  207-208.    The  Rev.   E.  Nute 
wrote  from  Boston  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  June  4,  1893,  that  he  was  in  Boston  at  the 
time  of  the  murders;  that  he  returned  soon  after,  and  heard  nothing  but  ex 
pressions  of  satisfaction  concerning  them.  —  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 


NOTES  611 

56.  John  B.  Manes,  son  of  Poindexter  Manes,  in  the  Garnet,  Kan.,  Plain- 
dealer,  January  9,  1880,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society;  S.  J.  Shively,  'The  Pottawa- 
tomie  Massacre,'  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  179;  Andreas, 
p.  603. 

57.  Martin's  The  First  Two  Years  of  Kansas,  p.  19. 

58.  Capt.  J.  M.  Anthony,  in  Leavenworth  Weekly  Times,  February  14,  1884; 
James  F.  Legate,  in  Topeka  Weekly  Capital,  February  28,  1884;  Hinton,  p.  87. 

59.  Statement  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Put-in  Bay,  November,  1908,  to  K. 
Mayo. 

60.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Mary  E.  Thompson. 

61.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Brown,  San  Jose,  California,  to  K.  Mayo,  Sep 
tember  24,  1908. 

62.  Statement  of  Mrs.  B.  F.  Jackson,  Topeka,  August,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

63.  See,  for  instance,  Gihon,  pp.  75,  85,  91,  98. 

64.  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  328.    In  a  later  statement,  in  possession  of  the  author, 
Mrs.  Robinson  affirms,  however,  that    her   charge  above  mentioned  was  made 
only  on  the  authority  of  a  rumor  circulated  by  Redpath,  which  was  later  entirely 
discredited. 

65.  Statement  of  George  Grant,  San  Jose*,  Cal.,  September  25,   1908.    It  is 
to  be  noted,  in  this  connection,  that  J.  G.  Grant,  his  brother,  stated,  on  Oct.  7, 
1908,  in  San  Francisco,  to  Miss  Mayo:  "Prior  to  Pottawatomie,  no  violence  had 
been  committed  in  our  region  on  either  side.   The  Free  State  men  had,  however, 
a  general  sense  of  danger  from  the  continued  threats  from  Missouri,  and  from 
depredations  elsewhere  rife."   According  to  John  T.  Grant  (see  his  letter  to  Rev. 
L.  W.  Spring,  in  Spring's  '  John  Brown,'  Proceedings   Massachusetts  Histori 
cal  Society,  March,  1900),  Henry  Sherman  told  Mrs.  J.  T.  Grant  that  Morse  and 
Weiner  had  been  ordered  to  leave  for  giving  ammunition  to  the  Pottawatomie 
Rifles. 

66.  Col.  James  Blood,  in  Topeka  Weekly  Capital  and  Farmers'  Journal,  January 
I,  1884. 

67.  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Brown;  George  W.  Grant,  statements  of  September,  1908. 

68.  J.  H.  Holmes  papers,  in  possession  of  the  author. 

69.  M.  V.  B.  Jackson  to  W.  E.  Connelley,  Emporia,  Kansas,  November  6,  1900. 
—  Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Connelley. 

70.  Garnett,  Kan.,  Plaindealer,  January  9,  1880. 

71.  Mr.  Adair's  son,  Charles  S.  Adair,  is  also  of  the  opinion  that  this  list  was  sub 
mitted.    In  a  long  and  interesting  letter,  written  in  May,  1856,  to  his  "Bro.  and 
Sis.  Hand,"  the  elder  Adair  tells  the  story  of  the  massacre  and  says  that  some 
of  the  murdered  men  "had  made  threats,  had  threatened  the  lives  of  Free  State 
men,  and  acted  most  outrageously  for  some  time  past,"  but  makes  no  mention 
of  an  Index  Expurgatorius  of  the  Free  State  men.    The  original  letter  is  in  pos 
session  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 

72.  The  Kansas  Memorial,  p.  196. 

73.  Statement  of   Col.  Edward  Anderson  to  K.  Mayo,  Boston,   January  10, 
1908;  see  also  letter,  quoting  Brown,  of  George  A.  Crawford  to  Eli  Thayer,  Fort 
Scott,  Kan.,  Aug.  4,  1879,  in  G.  W.  Brown  Papers,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

74.  John  Speer,  in  Topeka  Commonwealth,  January  30,  1886. 

75.  F.  G.  Adams  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  October  25,  1883,  in  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

76.  The  original  of  the  Pomeroy  letter  is  in  the  possession  of  the  author. 

77.  Wilder's  Annals,  p.  99. 

78.  Howard  Report,  p.  107. 


6i2  NOTES 

79.  Samuel  Walker  to  Judge  James  Hanway,  Lawrence,  February  8,  1875, 
Hanway  Papers,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

80.  F.  B.  Sanborn's  open  letter  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  in  Boston  Transcript,  De 
cember  6,  1884. 

81.  This  charge  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  is  in  the  Topeka  Commonwealth  of  Feb 
ruary  1 6,  1884.    For  ex-Governor  Robinson's  reply  and  the  continuation  of  the 
controversy,  see  Topeka  Commonwealth  of  1884. 

82.  Statement  of  Henry  Thompson  in  J.  H.  Holmes  Papers. 

83.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  208. 

84.  Judge  Thomas  Russell  to  C.  A.  Foster,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

85.  Recollections  of  Forty  Years,  by  John  Sherman,  New  York,  1896,  p.  100. 

86.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  78. 

87.  For  the  Hamilton  murders,  see  Andreas,  pp.  1104-1105;  William  P.  Tom- 
linson,  Kansas  in  1858;  New  York,  1859,  pp.  61-76. 

88.  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  2d  Series,  vol.  I,  Boston,  June, 
1884. 

89.  "The  truth  is  that  the  Pottawatomie  massacre  was  so  at  variance  with 
the  whole  course  and  policy  of  the  Free-State  party  in  Kansas  up  to  that  time, 
that  its  horrible  details  were  not  credited  in  the  East.  .  .  .  The  testimony  of 
impartial  observers  was  that  the  proslavery  men  were  lawless  and  aggressive, 
and  the  Free-State  settlers  submissive,  industrious,  and  anxious  for  liberty  and 
order.   Their  previous  good  character  prevented  the  country  from  believing  that 
the  killing  done  in  their  name  by  one  of  their  number  was  an  unprovoked  mas 
sacre." —  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  pp.  199-200. 

90.  In  justice  to  Mr.  Salmon  Brown  and  to  the  reader,  it  is  only  fair  that  there 
should  be  appended  to  the  discussion  of  the  Pottawatomie  tragedy  the  following 
letter,  particularly  as  it  has  been  printed  in  an  altered  and  misleading  form  which 
conveys  the  denial,  not  found  in  its  original,  that  John  Brown  was  present  at 
the  Pottawatomie  murders.    It  will  be  seen  from  this  letter  that  Salmon  Brown 
does  not  deny  that  his  father  was  present,  but  evades  a  direct  statement,  as  did 
his  father.    The  letter  was  written  in  a  period  of  great  stress  and  anxiety,  subse 
quent  to  the  execution  of  John  Brown,  when  it  did  not  seem  advisable  to  let  the 
real  facts  come  out.   The  original  of  this  letter  is  in  the  possession  of  the  family  of 
the  late  Dr.  Joshua  Young,  of  Winchester,  Mass. 

REV  JOSHUA  YOUNG.  NORTH  ELBA,  N.  Y.  Dec.  27th  '59. 

DEAR  SIR:  — 

Your  letter  to  my  mother  was  received  to-night.  You  wished  me  to  give  you 
the  facts  in  regard  to  the  Pottawatomie  execution  or  murder,  and  whether  my 
Father  was  a  participator  in  the  ACT.  I  was  one  of  his  company  at  the  time  of  the 
homicides  and  was  never  away  from  him  one  hour  at  a  time  after  we  took  up  arms 
in  Kansas.  Therefore  I  say  positively  that  he  was  not  a  participator  in  the  deed. 

Although  I  should  think  none  the  less  of  him  if  he  had  been  for  it  was  the  grand 
est  thing  that  was  ever  done  in  Kansas.  It  was  all  that  saved  the  territory  from 
being  run  over  with  drunken  land  pirates  from  the  Southern  States.  That  was 
the  first  act  in  the  history'  of  our  country  that  proved  to  the  demon  of  Slavery 
that  there  was  as  much  room  to  give  blows  as  to  take  them  it  was  done  to  save 
life  and  to  strike  terror  through  there  wicked  ranks.  I  should  like  to  write  you 
more  about  it  but  I  have  not  time  now.  We  all  feel  very  grateful  to  you  for  your 
kindness  to  us. 

Yours  Respectfully 

SALMON  BROWN. 


NOTES  613 


CHAPTER  VI 
CLOSE  QUARTERS  AT  BLACK  JACK 

1.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  pp.  198-200. 

2.  For  a  strong  expression  of  Mr.  Garrison's  opinion  as  to  the  Kansas  policies 
of  Beecher  and  Theodore  Parker,  see  the  Liberator,  vol.  26,  p.  42. 

3.  Pro-Slavery  Circular,  in  Squatter  Sovereign,  July  15,  1856. 

4.  Shannon  to  Pierce,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  416. 

5.  W.  H.  Coffin,  'The  Settlement  of  the  Friends  in  Kansas,'  Kansas  Historical 
Society  Collections,  vol.  7,  pp.  337-338. 

6.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  17,  1856. 

7.  Mrs.  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson,  on  pp.  273-274  of  her  book,  describes  her  ap 
proach  to  the  Territory  on  June  3  from  the  East.   Rumors  of  war  increased  as  the 
Border  was  neared.   Inflammatory  extras  depicting  the  Pottawatomie  murders  in 
lurid  terms,  and  inciting  to  revenge  and  reprisal,  were  current  in  western  Missouri, 
and  the  excited  people  were  everywhere  preparing  to  respond.    "'Murder  is  the 
watchword  and  midnight  deed,'  said  one  journal,  'of  a  scattered  and  scouting 
band  of  abolitionists.  .  .  .  Men  peaceable  and  quiet,  cannot  travel  on  the  public 
roads  of  Kansas.  ...  No  Southerner  dare  venture  alone  and  unarmed.'" 

8.  Correspondence  N.  Y.  Tribune  from  Fort  Scott,  June  4,  printed  July  I,  1856. 

9.  Mrs.  Robinson,  in  the  Wichita  (Kansas)  Eagle,  December  12,  1878. 

10.  Reprinted  in  the  St.  Louis  Republican,  June  14,  1856;  see  also  John  Sher 
man,  Recollections  of  Forty  Years,  p.  100. 

11.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown  to  K.  Mayo,  December  13,  1908. 

12.  William  Hutchinson  ("Randolph")  to  the  N.  Y.  Times,  from  Lawrence, 
June  23,  1856;  in  Hutchinson  Scrap-Book,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

13.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  2,  1856. 

14.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown  as  above.    The  original  official  notes  of  this 
examination  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Jason  Brown  and  their  fellow  prisoners,  before 
the  U.  S.  Commissioner,  Edward  Hoogland,  are  in  possession  of  Mr.  M.  W. 
Blackman,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

15.  From  an  unpublished  MS.  of    Owen  Brown,  in  the  possession  of    Miss 
Mary  E.  Thompson. 

16.  Bondi,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  pp.  282-283. 

17.  James  Redpath,  The  Public  Life  of  Captain  John  Brown,  Boston,  1860, 
pp.  112-114. 

1 8.  Bondi's  narrative;  also  Owen  Brown's  story. 

19.  Rebellion  Records,  Series  I,  vol.  36,  p.  778,  report  of  P.  H.  Sheridan,  Major- 
General  commanding;  also,  report  of  General  Custer,  ibid.,  p.  818;  see  also  Uni 
versity  of  Virginia,  New  York,  1904,  vol.  2,  p.  54.    Pate  thus  challenged  Horace 
Greeley  for  impugning  his  bravery:  "If  you  doubt  that  I  will  fight  you  can  have 
a  chance  to  try  me  in  any  way  you  want  to,  at  any  time  you  want  to.    My 
address  for  the  present  is,  89,  Guy's  National,  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  for  the 
future,  Lecompton,  Kansas  Territory,  until  further  notice;"  also  statement  of 
Major  Thomas  S.  Taliaferro,  Richmond,  April  23,  1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

20.  Owen  Brown,  in  the  Springfield  Republican,  January  14,  1889. 

21.  John  Brown  as  viewed  by  H.  Clay  Pate. 
I    22.  Quoted  in  Sanborn,  p.  239. 

1    23.  John  Brown,  by  H.  Clay  Pate. 

24.  John  Brown  to  his  family,  June,  1856,  Sanborn,  p.  240. 


6 14  NOTES 

25.  John  Brown  several  times  wrote  out  the  list  of  those  who  took  part  in  the 
engagement.   The  following,  from  the  original  in  the  Kansas  Historical  Society, 
is  the  roster  as  he  wrote  it :  — 

Saml  T  Shore,  Capt.  Silas  More.  David  Hendricks  (Horse  Guard).  Hiram 
McAllister.  Mr.  Parmely  (wounded)  Silvester  Harris.  O  A  Carpenter  (wounded). 
Augustus  Shore.  Mr.  Townsley  of  Pottowatomie.  WmBHayden.  JohnMcWhin- 
ney.  Montgomery  Shore.  Elkanah  Timmons.  T.  Weiner.  A.  Bondy.  Hugh 
McWhinney.  Charles  Keiser  Elizur  Hill.  Wm  Davis.  Mr.  Cochran  of  Pot 
towatomie.  Henry  Thompson  (dangerously  wounded)  Elias  Basinger.  Owen 
Brown.  Fredk.  Brown  (horse  guard)  Salmon  Brown  (wound  &  cripled.)  Oliver 
Brown. 

JOHN  BROWN. 

List  of  names  of  men  wounded  in  the  battle  of  Palmyra  or  Black  Jack:  also 
of  Eight  volunteers  who  maintained  their  position  during  that  fight:  &  to  whom 
the  surrender  was  made  June  2d  1856. 

O  A  Carpenter      \  wounded  badly;  Thompson  dangerously 

Henry  Thompson  / 

Mr  Parmely  }•  wounded  slightly  in  nose  also  in  Arm  so  that  he  had  to  leave 

the  ground 
Charles  Keiser 
Elizur  Hill 
Wm  David 
Hugh  McWhinney 
Mr.  Cochran  of  Pottawatomie 
Salmon  Brown  (accidentally  wounded  after  the  fight  &  liable  to  remain  a 

cripple) 
Oliver  Brown 

Names  of  all  who  either  fought  or  guarded  the  Horses  during  the  fight  at  Pal 
myra  June  2d  1856  will  be  found  on  the  other  side 
Respectfully  submited  by 

JOHN  BROWN 
Mess.  Whitman ") 
Eldridge       r 
&  others          ) 

26.  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  Exec.  Doc.  No.  I,  34th  Congress, 
3d  session,  House  of  Representatives,  pp.  44-45. 

27.  Correspondence  of  John  Sedg-wick,  Major-General,  vol.  2,  pp.  7~8. 

28.  For  this  raid  the  authorities  are  August  Bondi,  MS.  narrative  (hitherto 
unpublished)  in   the    Kansas    Historical    Society  Library;    testimony  of    J.  D. 
Pennypacker,  one  of  Pate's  men,  in  the  Richmond  Despatch  of  November  19, 
1859;  the  lengthy  testimony  of  J.  M.  Bernard  in  the  Report  on  Kansas  Claims, 
vol.  3,  Part  I,  pp.  842-862,  where  are  also  the  sworn  statements  of  six  other  wit 
nesses;  letter  of  J.  M.  Bernard  in  the  Missouri  Republican,  quoted  in  the  N.  Y. 
Tribune  of  June  20,  1856.  The  same  incident  is  referred  to  in  the  Oliver  Minority 
Report,  p.  108,  but  the  date  is  erroneously  given  as  May  27  and  28.   Bernard  was 
awarded  $9,524.91  on  May  6,  1859,  for  the  damage  inflicted  by  Brown's  men. 

29.  That  it  was  Col.  Preston,  and  not  one  Fain,  or  Marshal  Donaldson,  as 
variously  stated,  appears  from  Gov.  Shannon's  letter  of  June  4,  1856,  to  Col. 
Sumner,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  122;  and  from  a  letter 
of  J.  Bernard  to  Missouri  Republican,  written  at  Westport,  Monday,  June  9, 1856. 

30.  Statements  of  Salmon  Brown  and  Henry  Thompson  of  October  n,  1908, 


NOTES  615 

and  August  22,  1908,  respectively;  also  letter  of  J.  Bernard  as  above,  quoted  in 
the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  June  20.  The  story  is  variously  told  by  different  chroni 
clers. 

31.  Gov.  Shannon  to  the  President,  Lecompton,  June  17,  1856,  Kansas  His 
torical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  pp.  386-387. 

32.  Correspondence  of  Gov.  Shannon,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections, 
vol.  4,  p.  414. 

33.  Proclamation  of  Gov.  Shannon,  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War 
for  1856,  pp.  47-48;  see  also  Executive  Minutes  of  Gov.  Shannon,  Kansas  His 
torical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  121. 

34.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  421. 

35.  Andreas,  pp.  132-133;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  16,  1856. 

36.  Bondi  MSS.,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

37.  Andreas,  p.  134;  O.  C.  Brown's  letter  of  June  24,  1856,  Kansas  Historical 
Society;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  278;  Phillips,  pp.  374-375;  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  June  14 
and  June  17,  1856. 

38.  Gihon,  p.  90;  Phillips,  pp.  364-369;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  283;  N.  Y.  Tribune, 
June  26  and  27,  1856;  Herald  of  Freedom,  May  16,  1857;  Holloway,  p.  361. 

39.  Report  of  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  p.  49. 

40.  Phillips,  p.  380. 

41.  Report  of  Lieut.  Mclntosh  to  acting  Governor  Woodson,  Kansas  Histor 
ical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  391. 

42.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

43.  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  283;  Phillips,  p.  380;  see  also  N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  8,  for 
statement  of  robberies;  report  on  Kansas  Claims,  vol.  3,  Part  I,  pp.  206—207. 

44.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  19;  Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  284-285. 

45.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  26  and  27;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  298. 

46.  Gihon,  p.  91;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  June  I,  3  and  n. 

47.  Phillips,  p.  389. 

48.  Gladstone,  p.  281;  Gihon,  p.  93;  Cordley,  p.  113;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  324; 
'Life  of  Samuel  Walker, 'Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  6,  pp.  268-269: 
Andreas,  p.  142. 

49.  Cordley,  pp.  105-107;  statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.  13  and  14,  1908; 
Andreas,  pp.  320  and  427;  Mrs.  Robinson,  p.  328;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Sept.  8  and  9,  1856. 
,    50.  Andreas,  p.  133. 

51.  For  instances  of  Free  State  thefts  of  horses  owned  by  pro-slavery  men,  see 
Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  10,  p.  645.  The  Oliver  Minority  Report, 
pp.  1199-1205,  gives  many  instances  of  robberies  of  pro-slavery  stores  and  houses 
immediately  after  the  Pottawatomie  murders.    The  long  report  of  the  Commis 
sioners  of  Kansas,  already  referred  to,  should  also  be  studied  in  this  connection. 

52.  Quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  June  18,  1856. 
53-  Ibid. 

54.  Squatter  Sovereign,  July  15,  1856. 

55.  Proclamation  of  acting  Governor  Woodson,  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary 
of  War  for  1856,  pp.  57-58. 

56.  See  Report  of  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  pp.  26,  56,  61;  Shannon  to  Sum- 
ner,  June  23,  Executive  Minutes,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I, 
p.  123.    For  a  sample  of  the  rejoicing  of  pro-slavery  papers  when  Sumner  was 
relieved,  see  Richmond  Enquirer  of  September  5,  1856. 

57.  Secretary  of  War's  Report  for  1856,  p.  69. 

58.  Gen.  Edwin  Vose  Sumner,  born  in  Boston,  January  30,  1797,  entered  the 
army  in  1819  as  second  lieutenant  of  infantry.    He  served  in  the  Black  Hawk 


616  NOTES 

War,  and  led  the  cavalry  charge  at  Cerro  Gordo,  Mexico,  in  April,  1847;  was 
Governor  of  New  Mexico,  1851-53;  he  died  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  March  21,  1863, 
as  a  brigadier-general  in  the  regular  army  and  major-general  of  volunteers,  from 
disease  resulting  from  the  Fredericksburg  campaign,  in  which  he  commanded 
a  division.  He  had  the  respect  of  the  army  as  an  able  and  gallant  soldier,  espe 
cially  in  Indian  warfare.  In  a  letter  dated  "Camp  of  U.  S.  Cavalry,  near  Lecomp- 
ton,  July  7,  1856,"  addressed  to  Col.  Sumner  and  bearing  also  the  signatures 
of  Geo.  W.  Smith,  Gaius  Jenkins,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Henry  H.  Williams  and  Geo. 
W.  Deitzler,  Charles  Robinson  wrote  as  follows: 

"Whatever  judgment  the  people  of  Kansas  or  the  country  may  pass  upon  the 
conduct  of  the  administrator  of  Government,  or  I  should  rather  say,  adminis 
trator  of  outrage,  in  Kansas,  all  parties  must  concede  to  you,  personally,  the 
character  of  an  honorable,  impartial,  high-minded  and  efficient  officer;  notwith 
standing,  in  the  discharge  of  your  official  duty,  your  superiors  incur  the  censure 
of  persons  of  all  shades  of  political  faith."  —  See  N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  24,  1856. 

59.  The  correspondence  of   Shannon,   Woodson  and   Sumner,   and   between 
Jefferson  Davis  and  Sumner,  and  the  proclamation  of  acting  Governor  Woodson, 
will  be  found  in  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  for  1856.    See  also 
Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4;  and  vol.  9,  pp.  360-363. 

60.  Philadelphia  North  American,  quoted  in  the  Mobile  Daily  Tribune  of  Au 
gust  I,  1856;  Mrs.  Robinson,  pp.  309-315;  Phillips,  pp.  392-406;  N.  Y.  Tribune, 
July  10  and  19,  1856;  letter  of  James  Redpath,  dated  Topeka,  July  4,  in  the 
Milwaukee  Sentinel  of  July  17,  1856. 

61.  Statements  of  Salmon  Brown  and  Henry  Thompson;  letter  of  S.  L.  Adair 
to  T.  H.  Hand  and  Stephen  Davis  and  families,  Osawatomie,  July  17,  1856. — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis. 

62.  Quoted  in  W.  A.  Phillips's  article,  in.  Atlantic  Monthly  for  December,  1879. 

63.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr. 

64.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  Jason  Brown,  dated  Camp  U.  S.  Cavalry,  near  Le- 
compton,  Kansas,  July  30,  1856;  S.  L.  Adair,  Osawatomie,  July  17,  1856,  wrote 
to  T.  H.  Hand  and  Stephen  Davis  and  families  as  follows:  "Bro.  J.  B.  and  un 
married  sons  expect  to  leave  the  territory  immediately.  They  are  known  as  fight 
ing  men  and  are  a  terror  to  Mo."  —  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis. 

65.  Statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  Oct.  II,  1908. 

!    66.  MS.  diary  of  Samuel  J.  Reader,  Topeka,  Kansas,  in  his  possession. 

67.  Record  of  Court-Martial    of  Private  A.  D.    Stevens,  Company  F,  First 
Dragoons,  May,  1855,  in  office  of  Judge-Advocate-General,  War  Department, 
Washington;  also  letter  of  Judge- Advocate-General  G.  B.  Davis,  U.  S.  Army, 
November  23,  1908,  to  author. 

68.  Statement  of  Henry  Thompson,  August,  1908,  and  of  Salmon  Brown,  Oc 
tober,  1908;  the  story  of  Samuel  Walker,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections, 
vol.  6,  pp.  267-268,  also  treats  of  John  Brown's  movements  at  this  juncture.  The 
invalids  were  taken  in  an  ox-wagon  as  far  as  Tabor,  Iowa,  where  Owen  was 
especially  kindly  received  and  remained  until  he  had  fully  recuperated,  when  he 
returned  to  Kansas.  The  progress  homeward  of  Oliver  Brown,  Henry  Thompson 
and  Salmon  Brown,  together  with  William  Thompson,  a  brother  of  Henry,  whom 
they  met  on  their  way  out  and  dissuaded  from  entering  Kansas,  is  thus  described 
by  Salmon  Brown:  "We  other  four  bought  a  double  buggy  and  harness  from  the 
Oberlin  people  on  credit,  at  Tabor,  drove  to  Iowa  City,  sold  the  horses,  sent  back 
the  money  to  pay  for  the  wagon  and  all  four  went  home.  The  horses  for  the  double 
buggy  we  came  by  thus:  we  heard,  on  the  way  through  Nebraska,  that  some 
pro-slavery  men  were  after  us.  Oliver,  who  was  always  a  dare-devil,  and  William 


NOTES  617 

Thompson  ambushed  these  men,  deliberately  turning  aside  for  that  purpose. 
The  men,  ordered  off  their  horses,  took  it  for  a  regular  hold-up  in  force,  and  sur 
rendered  their  animals.  Oliver  and  William  immediately  jumped  on  and  lit  out 
for  Tabor.  It  was  these  horses  that  took  us  across  Iowa."  The  need  of  converting 
pro-slavery  animals  into  good  anti-slavery  stock  was  thus  urgent  with  the  Brown 
sons  in  peaceful,  placid  Nebraska  as  it  had  been  in  bleeding  Kansas. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  FOE  IN  THE  FIELD 

1.  Andreas,  p.  138;  T.  W.  Higginson  and  other  correspondents,  in  the  N.  Y. 
Tribune  of  July  7,  1856;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  14,  1856;  statement  of  Thomas  W. 
Bicknell,  Providence,  R.  L,  Jan.  24,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo;  the  Squatter  Sovereign  of 
July  I,  1856,  under  the  caption  of  "More  Arms  Captured!"  made  this  pro-slavery 
comment,  characteristic  of  the  view  of  the  Border  Ruffian  press:  "On  the  way 
up  the  river  they  were  boasting  of  what  they  would  do,  should  any  one  attempt  to 
molest  them.  .  .  .  When  they  arrived  at  the  Political  Quarantine  the  whole  party 
of  seventy-eight,  all  of  them  'armed  to  the  teeth,'  surrendered  to  a  company  of 
twenty  Border  Ruffians.  ...  If  this  is  the  material  we  have  to  encounter  in 
Kansas  we  have  but  little  to  fear  of  the  result.  Fifty  thousand  such  'cattle'  could 
not  subdue  the  Spartan  band  now  in  possession  of  Kansas." 

2.  Andreas,  pp.  138-139;  Holloway,  pp.  363-364;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  9,  15 
and  17,  1856. 

3.  Andreas,  pp.  136-137;  Chicago  Daily  Tribune,  June  2,  1856;  John  Speer's 
Lane,  pp.  101-107. 

4.  The  Republican  Party,  edited  by  John  D.  Long,  p.  47.    (No  place  of  publi 
cation  given.) 

5.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  May,  1909. 

6.  Congressional  Globe,  34th  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  xli,  pp.  1009-1013. 

7.  Congressional  Globe,  34th  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  xli,  p.  869. 

8.  Congressional  Globe,  34th  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  xl,  p.  1873,  for  action  of 
the  House  against  Whitfield  and  Reeder. 

9.  Congressional  Globe,  34th  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  xxxix,  p.  1541. 

10.  For  a  more  detailed  narrative  of  the  struggle  over  Kansas,  see  Rhodes, 

vol.  2,  pp.  2OI-2O2. 

11.  See  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Jan.  27,  1857,  for  report  of  Horace  White,  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Committee. 

12.  For  Samuel  Walker's  story  of  this  ride,  see  Kansas  Historical  Society  Col 
lections,  vol.  6,  pp.  267-268. 

13.  Walker  to  Hanway,  from  Lawrence,  Feb.  18,  1875;  Hanway  Papers,  Kan 
sas  Historical  Society. 

14.  Andreas,  p.  142;  Bondi  MSS.;  Charles  R.  Tuttle,  History  of  Kansas,  Madi 
son,  Wis.,  1876,  p.  358;  J.  H.  Holmes's  testimony,  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Aug.  21,  1856. 

15.  Bondi  MSS.,  Part  3,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

16.  Printed  in  the  Missouri  Democrat  of  Aug.  27,  1856,  and  reprinted  in  the 
N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Sept.  8,  1856;  Squatter  Sovereign,  Aug.  26,  1856;  see  also  Leaven- 
worth  City  Journal,  Aug.  17,  1856;  Missouri  Republican,  Aug.  23,  1856. 

17.  Bondi  MSS. 

1 8.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

.    19.  See  their  manifesto  in  the  Squatter  Sovereign  of  Aug.  26,  1856. 


6i8  NOTES 

20.  "Randolph's"  letters  of  Aug.  29  and  Sept.  7,  1856,  in  the  N.  Y.  Times. 

21.  Article  entitled  'Old  John   Brown,'  in  John  Brown  Scrap-Book  No.  3, 
Kansas  Historical  Society. 

22.  Statement  of  Ezra  Robinson  at  Paola,  Kansas,  Oct.  3,  1908,  to  the  au 
thor. 

23.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Mary  Grant  Brown,  San  Jose,  Cal.,  Sept.  24,  1908,  to 
K.  Mayo.    Ephraim  Coy  testifies   similarly  to  a  panic  of  the  Border  Ruffians 
on  hearing  that  John  Brown  was  coming  with  six  hundred  rifles  and  a  thousand 
men.   See  MS.  entitled  'Kansas  Experiences  of  Ephraim  Coy,1  Hyatt  Papers, 
Kansas  Historical  Society. 

24.  Statement  of  R.  G.  Elliott,  July  27,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

25.  Quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Aug.  25,  1856. 

26.  Statement  of  Major  James  B.  Abbott,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collec 
tions,  vols.  1-2,  p.  221.  This  cannon  is  now  in  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

27.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vols.  1-2,  pp.  218-219. 

28.  Holloway,  p.  379. 

29.  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  Mobile  Tribune,  reprinted  in  N.  Y.   Tribune, 
Aug.  23,  1856. 

30.  Andreas,  pp.  142-143;  Cordley,  p.  115;  Holloway,  p.  379;  Mrs.  Robinson, 
pp.  324-325;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Aug.  25  and  29,  1856. 

31.  The  best  account  of  the  Fort  Titus  affair  is  to  be  found  in  Capt.  Samuel 
Walker's  narrative  already  referred  to,  in  the  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collec 
tions,  vol.  6,  pp.  269-273.    Captain  Shombre  was  a  member  of  James  H.  Lane's 
party,  and  had  therefore  but  just  arrived  in  the  Territory;  see  also  Cordley, 
pp.  115-120;  Speer's  Lane,  p.  115;  and  Andreas,  pp.  142-143. 

32.  Statement  of  Luke  F.  Parsons  to  the  author,  Salina,  Kansas,  Oct.  7,  1908. 

33.  Statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.  13  and  14,  1908. 

34.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  John  Brown,  Aug.  II,  1856.  —  Original  in  the  posses 
sion  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr. 

35.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  p.  131. 

36.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Aug.  29,  1856;  Andreas,  p.  143. 

37.  Andreas,  p.  143.  Tribute  to  Shannon,  by  B.  F.  Simpson,  Kansas  Historical 
Society  Publications,  vol.  I,  pp.  87-91. 

38.  Andreas,  p.  143;  Executive  Minutes,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Publica 
tions,  vol.  i,  p.  131;  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  403. 

39.  Letter  of  Jan.  14,  1860,  of  Martin  White,  in  Bates  County,  Mo.,  Standard, 
Jan.,  1860;   Bondi;  J.  H.  Holmes    to  Gov.   Geary,  Oct.   2,  1856,  in  Executive 
Papers  of  1856,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society.   In  an  appeal  to  the  public  printed  in 
the  Squatter  Sovereign  of  Aug.  26,  1856,  and  signed  by  Atchison,  Russell,  Boone 
and  Stringfellow,  the  following  appears:  "On  the  I3th  inst.,  a  party  numbering 
some  fifty  attacked  the  house  of  Mr.  White  in  Lykins  Co.,  and  drove  him  into 
Missouri,  robbing  him  of  everything.    He  is  a  Free  State  man,  but  sustains  the 
laws,  and  was  attacked  for  attempting  to  procure  the  arrest  of  the  murderers  of 
Wilkinson." 

40.  See  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  737,  letter  of  Gov.  Geary 
to  Williams  and  Heiskell;  joint  letter  of  Totten  and  Wilson  to  acting  Governor 
Woodson,  same  volume,  p.  743;  statement  of  C.  S.  Adair,  Osawatomie,  Oct.  2, 
1908,  to  the  author;  statement  of  J.  G.  Grant,  San  Francisco,  Oct.  7,  1908,  to 
K.  Mayo;  Andreas,  p.  605;  letter  of  Daniel  Woodson  to  Lewis  Cass,  Lecompton, 
March  31,  1857,  in  the  Executive  Minutes  of  1857,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

41.  From  John  Brown's  Memorandum-Book  No.  2.  —  Original  in  Boston  Pub 
lic  Library. 


NOTES  619 

42.  Statement  of   C.  G.  Allen  to  James  "Redpath,  undated,  Hinton  Papers, 
Kansas  Historical  Society. 

43.  This  narrative  of  South  Middle  Creek  is  drawn  from  the  statements  of 
Capt.  Cline,  Holmes,  Bondi,  George  Grant,  Thomas  Bedoe,  C.  G.  Allen,  all  in 
the  Kansas  Historical  Society  except  Capt.  Cline's,  which  is  in  the  Tribune  of 
Sept.  17,  1856;  also  the  sworn  statements  of  Thomas  Rice,  James  N.  Gibson, 
R.  W.  Wood,  Benjamin  F.  Brantley,  R.  E.  Noel,  J.  H.  Little  and  William  Rogers 
(from  whom  Brown's  men  stole  horses  and  other  property),  all  in  the  Report  on 
Kansas  Claims,  vol.  3,  Part  2.    A  confirmatory  letter  of  S.  L.  Adair  of  Aug.  13, 
1856,  to  his  "  Bro  &  Sis.  Davis"  is  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis  at  Kala- 
mazoo,  Mich. 

44.  John  Brown  the  Hero,  by  J.  W.  Winkley,  M.  D. ,  Boston,  1905,  pp.  71- 
72. 

45.  Ibid.,  pp.  79-81;  Holmes  testimony,  Hyatt  Papers,  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

46.  Bedoe's  testimony,  Hyatt  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society.    See  Report 
of  H.  J.  Strickler  on  the  claims  of  the  citizens  of  Kansas  Territory,  House  Misc. 
Doc.  No.  43,  35th  Congress,  2d  session,  1859,  p.  17,  for  petition  of  Thomas  H. 
Brown,  of  Linn  County,  containing   list  of   property,  clothing,  household  gear 
and  live  stock  taken  from  him  and  his  brother  [Capt.]  John  E.  Brown,  by  John 
Brown  of  Osawatomie,  on  this  raid.    Similar  statements  of  losses  inflicted  by 
Brown's  men  are  in  the  Report  of  the  Commissioners  on  Kansas  Claims. 

47.  Bondi;  'Old  John  Brown,'  by  Capt.  J.  M.  Anthony,  Leavenworth  Weekly 
Times,  Feb.  14,  1884;  statement  of  Jason  Brown,  Dec.  13  and  14,  1908. 

48.  J.  H.  Holmes.  MS.  story  of  his  experiences  at  Osawatomie,  in  possession 
of  the  author. 

49.  Letter  of  A.  G.  Hawes  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  San  Francisco,  Feb.  26,  1895,  in 
possession  of  the  author;  the  same  to  F.  G.  Adams,  San  Francisco,  Aug.  13,  1889, 
Kansas  Historical  Society;  the  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair  to  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  Osawatomie, 
Aug.  29,  1856,  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Davis. 

50.  The  following  sources  have  been  consulted,  among  others,  in  the  prepara 
tion  of  the  story  of  the  battle  of  Osawatomie:  Narratives  of  Bartow  Darrach, 
N.  Y.  Evening  Post,  Sept.  15,  1856;  George  Grant,  J.  G.  Grant,  August  Bondi, 
James  H.  Holmes,  Thomas  Bedoe,  Joseph  R.  Morey,  J.  M.  Anthony,  Mary  Fuller, 
O.  C.  Brown,  Luke  F.  Parsons,  Alexander  G.  Hawes,  Charles  S.  Adair,  Robert 
Reynolds,  James  J.  Holbrook,  Robert  W.  Wood,  Thomas  Roberts,  Spencer  K. 
Brown,  George  Cutter,  Nelson  J.  Roscoe,  Morgan  Cronkhite,  Dr.  John  Doy; 
contemporary  letters  of  the  Rev.  and  Mrs.  S.  L.  Adair,  Dr.  W.  W.  Updegraff, 
Jason  Brown,  Capt.  James  B.  Cline,  George  B.  Gill,  James  Hanway,  Lydia  S. 
Hall,  Mrs.  S.  A.  Stevens,  C.  G.  Allen,  Sperry  Dye,  Samuel  Anderson,  George 
Cutter,  Mary  E.  Jackson,  William  Chesnut  and  John  Brown;  on  the  pro-slavery 
side,  the  Rev.  Martin  White,  Gen.  J.  W.  Reid,  Capt.  Jernigan,  James  Chiles, 
Congrave  Jackson,  Capt.  G.  M.  B.  Maughas,  W.  Limerick  (in  the  Weekly  Mis 
souri  Statesman  for  Sept.  5,  1856),  the  Missouri  Republican,  the  Missouri  States 
man,  the  Leavenworth  Herald,  the  Jefferson  Enquirer,  the  St.  Louis  Morning 
Herald,  the  St.  Louis  Evening  News  ;  anti-slavery  newspapers:  the  N.  Y.  Tribune, 
the  Liberator,  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  the  St.  Louis  Democrat ;  also  official 
report  of  Gen.  P.  F.  Smith  and  Gov.  Geary,  and  of  acting  Gov.  Woodson,  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4;  also  statements  and  letters  of  Mrs.  Emma 
Adair  Remington  and  Mr.  C.  S.  Adair,  of  Osawatomie,  to  the  author.   A  particu 
larly  valuable  story  of  the  conflict  is  the  joint  letter  of  the  Rev.  and  Mrs.  Adair, 
under  date  of  Aug.  29  and  Sept.  2,  1856,  to  Mrs.  S.  C.  Davis,  in  whose  possession 


620  NOTES 

the  original  now  is,  as  is  Mr.  Adair's  letter  to  Mrs.  Hand,  Osawatomie,  Sept. 
2, 1856,  which  well  supplements  the  narrative. 

51.  Quoted  in  Leavenworth  Journal,  March  12,  1857. 

52.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Sept.  17,  1856. 

1    53.  Statement  of  Ezra  Robinson  to  the  author  at  Paola,  Kansas,  Oct.  3,  1908. 

54.  Missouri  Weekly  Statesman,  Sept.  5,  1856;  St.  Louis  Daily  Democrat,  Sept. 
8,  1856. 

55.  St.  Louis  Intelligencer,  Sept.  6,  1856,  copied  from  Glasgow  Times  of  Sept. 
4,  1856. 

56.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

57.  Original  in  possession  of  Francis  J.  Garrison,  Lexington,  Mass. 

58.  Original  manuscript  in  possession  of  Mrs.  B.  W.  Woodward,  Lawrence, 
Kansas. 

59.  Statement  of  Joseph  H.  Morey,  a  prisoner,  in  the  Rochester  (N.  Y.)  Daily 
Democrat  of  Sept.  12,  1856;  see  also  testimony  of  Robert  Reynolds,  in  Report  on 
Kansas  Claims,  vol.  3,  Part  2,  pp.  1101-1103. 

60.  See  Spencer  Kellogg  Brown,  his  Life  in  Kansas  and  Death  as  a  Spy,  edited 
by  George  Gardner  Smith,  New  York,  1903. 

61.  Report  of  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  pp.  90-92. 

62.  Ibid.,  pp.  29-31. 

63.  Walker's  Narrative,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  6,  pp.  273- 
274;  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  pp.  101-103. 

64.  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  p.  102. 

65.  Statement  of  Henry  Reisner,  Topeka,  July  22,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

66.  Statements  of  Holmes,  Parsons  and  Jason  Brown. 

67.  Letter  of  Aaron  D.  Stevens,  signed  "Charles  Whipple,  Col.  1st  Regiment 
Kansas  Volunteers,"  to  his  brother,  Aug.  28,  1856;  Headquarters  2d  Regiment, 
Kansas  Volunteers.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Dr.  Henry  B.  Stevens,  Boston. 

68.  J.  B.  Donaldson,  U.  S.  Marshal,  to  Gov.  Geary,  Lecompton,  Sept.  25,  1856, 
Executive  Correspondence,  Kansas  Historical  Society.  Facts  about  Col.  Harvey's 
horse-thefts  are  scattered  throughout  vol.  3,  Part  I,  of  the  Report  on  Kansas 
Claims. 

69.  C.  F.  Gilman  to  Col.  A.  G.  Boone,  of  Westport,  Council  Grove,  Sept.  16, 
1856.   Executive  Correspondence,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

70.  "Randolph"  to  the  N.  Y.  Times,  Lawrence,  Sept.  10,  1856. 

71.  These  documents  will  be  found  in  the  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  for 
1856,  and  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  4,  pp.  522-527. 

72.  For  the  Hickory  Point  fight,  see  report  of  Capt.  T.  J.  Wood,  1st  U.  S. 
Cavalry,  to  Lieut.-Col.  P.  St.  G.  Cooke,  Sept.  16,  1856,  in  Report  of  the  Secretary 
of  War,  pp.  123-126;  Andreas,  pp.  149  and  501-502;  Speer's  Lane,  pp.  123-124; 
MS.  Journal  of  Samuel  J.  Reader,  of  Topeka,  Kansas;  Gihon,  p .  140  et  seq.;  Gov. 
Geary  to  Secretary  Marcy,  Lecompton,  Sept.  16,  1856,  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  4,  p.  535   et  seq.;  Holloway,  pp.  401-402;  Report  on  Kansas 
Claims,  vol.  3,  Part  I,  pp.  287-289. 

73.  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke  to  Major  F.  J.  Porter,  Lecompton,  Sept.  13,  1856,  in 
report  of  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  pp.  113-114. 

74.  Ibid.,  pp.  121-122,  Lieut.-Col.  Cooke  to  Major  F.  J.  Porter,  Sept.  16,  1856. 

75.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

76.  Statement  of  Major  James  Burnett  Abbott  to  F.  G.  Adams,  Abbott  Papers, 
Kansas  Historical  Society;  Capt.  Joseph  Cracklin  in  Lawrence  Daily  Tribune, 
April  18,  1881;  John  Speer,  Lawrence  Journal,  Jan.  22,  1880;  Robinson,  Kansas 
Conflict,  pp.  324-328;  Nathaniel  Parker,  in  Hyatt  Journal  of  Investigation,  Dec. 


NOTES  621 

5,  1856;  statement  of  Col.  O  E.  Leonard  to  K.  Mayo,  Lawrence,  Kan.,  July  28, 
1908;  H.  Miles  Moore,  Topeka  Capital,  Oct.  10,  1897;  Andreas,  p.  i5o;Hinton, 
pp.  46-52;  Sanborn,  pp.  333-336;  statement  of  George  Leis,  Lawrence,  Nov.  29, 
1909,  for  the  author;  Hinton,  in  an  otherwise  inaccurate  letter,  dated  Dec.  13, 1859, 
to  the  Boston  Traveller,  and  reprinted  in  the  Tribune  of  Dec.  8,  1859,  affirmed  that 
John  Brown  was  asked  on  Sept.  13,  1856,  "by  all  the  prominent  citizens,  to  take 
charge  of  the  defence." 

77.  Hinton,  pp.  49-50.    Hinton  wrote  to  W.  E.  Connelley,  June  9,  1900,  that 
the  account  given  of  Brown's  speech  "is  accurate.   I  took  it  down  in  shorthand. 
I  am  a  stenographer.    I  was  by  his  side.    It  was  published  in  one  of  my  letters 
to  the  Boston  Traveller." 

78.  Executive  Minutes  of  Gov.  Geary,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections, 
vol.  4,  pp.  571  and  629-631;  Robinson,  p.  339;  Andreas,  pp.  151-153;  Holloway, 
pp.  408-409;  Gihon,  pp.  166-181;  Report  on  Kansas  Claims,  vol.  3,  Part  2,  pp. 
1377-1380. 

79.  Secretary  of  War's  Report  for  1856,  pp.  142-143,  Lieut. -Col.  Cooke  to 
Major  F.  J.  Porter,  Oct.  10,  1856. 

80.  Ibid.,  p.  146. 

81.  Charleston,  S.  C.,  Standard,  letter  signed  "Ingomar,"  dated  Lecompton, 
September  5,  1856,  quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  September  29. 

82.  Letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  July  30,  1856,  to  Jason  Brown.  —  Original  in 
possession  of  Mrs.  Thompson. 

83.  John  Brown  to  his  family.  Tabor,  Iowa,  October  n,  1856.  —  Original  in  the 
possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.   John  Brown  wrote  to  his  brothers  Frederick 
and  Jeremiah,  Tabor,  Iowa,  nth  October,  1856:  "I  left  Kansas  both  on  business 
and  to  recover  my  health,  being  so  unwell  that  I  had  to  be  brought  here  on  a  bed  in 
a  wagon.   There  is  just  now  a  kind  of  dead  calm  of  the  elements  there.    I  expect 
to  go  back  should  the  trouble  continue  and  my  health  admit.  Am  getting  better 
fast,  and  hope  to  see  you  soon."  —  Original  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark. 

84.  MS.  lecture  entitled  'John  Brown  the  Liberator,'  by  James  H.  Holmes, 
in  possession  of  the  author. 

85.  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  for  1856,  pp.  139-140. 

86.  Another  narrow  escape  of  John  Brown  has  been  described  for  the  author 
by  Mrs.  Emma  Wattles  Morse  in  these  words:  "One  evening  in,  I  think,  early 
September,  1856,  Captain  Brown  left  my  father,  Mr.  Wattles's  house,  then  in 
Douglas  County,  going  southward  on  a  trip  to  Miami  and  Linn  Counties.    He 
learned  on  the  road  a  little  after  midnight,  that  a  company  of  dragoons  was  on 
the  way  to  arrest  him,  so  he  returned  to  my  father's  just  after  daylight.    Late 
in  the  afternoon  Lieut,  (now  General)  Eugene  A.  Carr,  First  Cavalry,  arrived 
at  the  Wattles  house  and  asked  Brown's  whereabouts.  On  learning  of  his  depar 
ture  the  night  before,  the  soldiers  sat  down  and  were  served  with  all  the  melons 
they  would  eat.   As  Brown  lay  on  the  floor  of  the  attic,  whither  he  had  gone  to 
sleep,  he  could  look  down  between  the  roof  boards  and  the  top  log  of  the  wall, 
hearing  every  word,  seeing  every  movement,  with  his  two  loaded  Colt's  revolvers 
in  his  hands.    The   soldiers  rode  away  in  disgust,  certain,  however,  that  their 
fellow-troopers  in  the  south  would  catch  Brown." 

87.  From  a  copy  in  A.  A.  Lawrence's  letter-book,  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
Frederic  Cunningham,  Longwood,  Mass. 

88.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

89.  See  Topeka  Commonwealth  for  December  12, 1883,  and  February  16,  1884; 
the  Hiawatha  World  for  December  27, 1883;  the  Lawrence,  Kansas,  Herald,  Janu 
ary  2,  1884. 


622  NOTES 

90.  Dated  Lecompton,  March  12,  1857;  see  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collec 
tions,  vol.  4,  p.  739. 

91.  Report  of  Commissioners  of  Kansas  Territory,  July,  1857,  in  Report  of 
Committees,  36th  Congress,  2d  session,  vol.  3,  Part  I,  p.  92. 

92.  See,  for  example,  speech  of  Gerrit  Smith  at  Buffalo,  July  10,  1856,  in  Lib 
erator,  vol.  26,  p.  125. 

93.  For  instance,  the  Weston,  Platte  Co.,  Mo.,  Reporter  (pro-slavery),  on  April 
21,  1856,  said:  "Experience  has  shown  that  most  of  the  emigrants  from  slave 
states  have  become  free  state  men  in  Kansas."    It  was  stated  in  a  debate  before 
the  Georgia  Legislature  in  1856  that  out  of  89  men  transported  from  Tennes 
see  to  Kansas,  80  proved  false  and  voted  against  the  South.  See  Newark,  Georgia, 
Mercury,  March  3,  1856.     See  also  Fleming's  'Buford  Expedition,'  American 
Historical  Review,  October,  1900,  p.  48. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
NEW   FRIENDS  FOR  OLD  VISIONS 

1.  For  the  story  of  Tabor,    see  Early  Settlement  and  Growth  of  Western  Iowa, 
by  Rev.  John  Todd,   Des  Moines,  1906,  which  contains  his  reminiscences;  also, 
John  Brown  Among  the  Quakers,  by  Irving  B.  Richman,  Des  Moines,  1894,  pp. 
15-18. 

2.  Todd's  Early  Settlement  of  Western  Iowa,  pp.  121-122. 

3.  Both  Mr.  White's  letter  and  that  of  Mr.  Webster  are  in  the  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

4.  Statement  of  Salmon  Brown  for  the  author. 

5.  Watson  Brown  to  his  mother,  brothers  and  sisters,  St.  Charles,  Iowa,  October 
30,  1856.  — Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

6.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Boston,  January  5,  1857,  to  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 
—  Original  in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

7.  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  by  his  Children,  vol.  3,  pp.  487-488. 

8.  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Theodore  Parker,  by  John  Weiss,  New  York,  1864, 
vol.  2,  p.  161. 

9.  Report  of  the  Mason  Investigating  Committee  of  the  United  States  Senate, 
36th  Congress,  ist  session,  p.  227,  Washington,  June,  1860. 

10.  Life  and  Public  Service  of  George  Luther  Stearns,  by  Frank  Preston  Stearns, 
Philadelphia,  1907,  pp.  133-134. 

11.  Life  of  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  by  his  son,  William  Lawrence,  Boston,  1888, 
p.  124. 

12.  Ibid.,  p.  125. 

13.  A  Yankee  in  Canada,  by  Henry  D.  Thoreau,  Boston,  1866,  pp.  156-157; 
also  in  Thoreau's  Miscellanies,  Boston,  1893,  pp.  202-203. 

14.  Life  of  George  Luther  Stearns,  p.  132. 

15.  Letter  of  George  L.  Stearns,  Chairman  of  State  Committee,  January  8, 
1857.  —  Copy  of  original  in  possession  of  the  Stearns  family. 

16.  George  L.  Stearns  to  John  Brown,  April  15,  1857,  in  Mason  Report,  p. 
229. 

17.  Letter  of  G.  L.  Stearns  to  H.,B.  Kurd,  Boston,  September  30,  1856,  in 
Sanborn,  p.  368. 

1 8.  Mason  Report,  pp.  247-248. 

19.  Sanborn,  p.  348. 


NOTES  623 

20.  H.  B.  Hurd,  Chicago,  March  19,  1860,  to  George  L.  Stearns. —Original  in 
Stearns  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

21.  Memorandum  of  H.  B.  Hurd  for  Captain  J ohn  Brown.  —  Original  in  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

_  22.  Mason  Report,  p.  249. 

"  23.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society.  See  Appendix. 

24.  The  correspondence  between  Horace  White  and  John  Brown  is  aH  in  the 
possession  of  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

25.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

26.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams;  see  also  Hinton,  p.  144. 

1    27.  John  Brown  to  Augustus  Wattles,  Boston,  February  16,  1857  (from  a  copy 
in  the  Holmes  Papers). 

28.  This  question  and  others  were  reported  by  Redpath.  See  pp.  182-184  of  h*8 
Life  of  Brown. 

29.  Letter  of  September  22,  1856,  of  Charles  H.  Branscomb,  from  Boston,  to 
John  Brown.  — Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

30.  John  Brown  to  A.  A.  Lawrence,  New  Haven,  March  19,  1857,  —  original 
in  possession  of  Mrs.  Frederic  Cunningham,   Longwood,  Mass.;  testimony  of 
W.  H.  D.  Callender,  Mason  Report,  p.  114. 

31.  John  Brown  to  his  wife  and  children,  Springfield,  March  12,  1857. —  Ori 
ginal  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

32.  A.A.Lawrence  to  John  Brown,  Boston,  February  19,1857;  G.  L.  Stearns 
to  John  Brown,  Boston,  April  15,  1857. —  Originals  of  both  in  Stearns  Papers. 

33.  John  Brown  to  P.  T.  Jackson  (letter  and  draft),  Springfield,  Mass.,  April 
21,  1857;  H.  Sterns  to  P.  T.  Jackson  of  same  date.  —  Both  originals  in  the  P.  T. 
Jackson  Papers,  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 

34.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  March  4,  1857. 

35.  John  Brown  to  A.  A.  Lawrence,  March  19,  1857,  —  original  in  possession 
of  Mrs.  Frederic  Cunningham;  to  his  brother,  Jeremiah  Brown,  Springfield,  April 
I,  1857,  — original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  L.  Clark. 

36.  A.  A.  Lawrence  to  John  Brown,  Boston,  March  20,  1857;  Lawrence  letter- 
book,  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Cunningham. 

37.  G.  L.  Stearns  Papers. 

38.  John  Brown  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  Vergennes,  Vt.,  May  13,  1857.  — Original 
in  Stearns  Papers. 

39.  Report  of  F.  B.  Sanborn  to  G.  L.  Stearns  and  others,  August  25,  1857. 
—  Original  in  Stearns  Papers. 

40.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society;  see  the  Worcester  Daily  Spy  of 
March  24  and  25,  1857,  for  Brown's  visit  to  Worcester. 

41.  Francis  Wayland  to  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Sanborn,  p.  381. 

42.  A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  by  James  Elliot  Cabot,  Boston,  1887, 
vol.  2,  p.  596. 

43.  Address  delivered  in  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  Saturday,  November  18, 
1859,  in  Redpath's  Echoes  of  Harper's  Ferry,  Boston,  1860,  pp.  67-71;  Emerson's 
Miscellanies,  Boston,  1904,  p.  268. 

44.  See  letter  of  Eli  Thayer,  April  4,  1857.  —  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  So 
ciety,  where  will  be  found  further  correspondence  covering  these  points.    See 
also  letter  of  John  Brown  to  Eli  Thayer,  Springfield,  April  16,  1857.  —  Original  in 
possession  of  W.  K.  Bixby,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

45.  Sanborn,  p.  387. 

46.  John  Brown  to  ex-Governor  Reeder,  Springfield,  April  I,  1857.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  F.  G.  Logan,  Chicago. 


624  NOTES 

47.  John  Brown  to  his  wife,  Springfield,  March  31,  1857.  —  Original  in  posses 
sion  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

48.  See  Blair's  testimony  for  the  story  of  the  pikes,  in  Mason  Report,  pp.  121- 
129.  The  originals  of  Blair's  letters  to  John  Brown  are  to  be  found  in  the  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

49.  This  account  of  Brown's  relations  with  Forbes  is  drawn  from  Sanborn, 
Hinton,  Redpath;  the  testimonies  of  Wilson,  Seward,  Howe  and  Realf  before  the 
Mason  Committee;  the  reports  of  Joseph  Bryant  to  John  Brown,  now  in  the  Kan 
sas  Historical  Society;  the  N.  Y.  Tribune;  and  from  Forbes's  own  story  in  the 
N.  Y.  Herald  of  October  27,  1859;  see  also  John  Brown's  letter,  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
June  22,   1857,  to  H.  Forbes,  demanding  repayment  of  the  $600,  —  original  in 
Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

50.  Gerrit  Smith  to  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  Peterboro,  July  25,  1857.  —  Original  in 
Hyatt  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

51.  Jason  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Akron,  Ohio,  April  3,  1857.  —  Original  in 
possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

52.  John  Brown  to  Eli  Thayer,  Springfield,  Mass.,  April  16,  1857.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  W.  K.  Bixby,  St.  Louis.   See  also  letter  to  his  brother,  Jeremiah 
Brown,  West  Newton,  Mass.,  April  15,  1857.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  S. 
L.  Clark. 

53.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Thomas  Russell,  Jamaica  Plain,  Mass.,  January  1 1, 1908, 
to  Miss  K.  Mayo. 

54.  Original  in  possession  of  Stearns  family. 

55.  The  complete  correspondence  relating  to  this  matter  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Stearns  Papers,  in  possession  of  the  Stearns  family,  and  in  the  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

56.  John   Brown  to  G.    L.  Stearns,  Albany,  April   28,  1857.  —  Original  in 
Library  of  Congress. 

57.  Sanborn,  p.  406. 

58.  John  Brown  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  Vergennes,  Vt./May  13,  1857.  —  Original  in 
possession  of  the  Stearns  family. 

59.  Mason  Report,  p.  220.  There  was  a  real  Nelson  Hawkins,  a  brother-in-law 
of  Mrs.  Jason  Brown. 

60.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  John  Brown,  Lindenville,  Ohio,  April  23,  1857.  — 
Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

61.  G.  L.  Stearns  to  Mrs.  Abby  Hopper  Gibbons,  Boston,  May  18,  1857.  — • 
Original  in  Stearns  Papers. 

62.  Testimony  of  G.  L.  Stearns,  Mason  Report,  pp.  227-228. 

63.  John  Brown  to  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Tabor,  August  13,  1857,  Sanborn,  pp.  412- 
414. 

64.  John  Brown  to  His  Wife  and  Children,  Hudson,  Ohio,  May  27,  1857. — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

65.  Mason  Report,  p.  221. 

66.  From  a  copy  in  the  Stearns  Papers. 

67.  Ibid. 

68.  See  letter  of  Caleb  Calkins,  Peterboro,  June  20,  1857,  —  original  in  posses 
sion  of  Miss  Brown;  John  Brown's  Memorandum-Book,  Boston  Public  Library. 

69.  Letter  of  Leonard  Bacon  to  Governor  Wise,  New  Haven,  November  14, 
1859.  —  Original  in  Dreer  Collection.   Mr.  Bacon  erroneously  places  the  date  of 
the  celebration  in  July,  1857.  It  actually  took  place  June  24,  1857. 

70.  Tabor,  July  6,  1857;  from  copy  in  the  possession  of  the  Stearns  family. 

71.  Brown  to  Sanborn,  Tabor,  August  13,  1857,  Sanborn,  pp.  412-414. 


NOTES  625 

72.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  239. 

73.  This  resume  of  Gov.  Walker's  service,  and  the  following  account  of  the  po 
litical  events  in  Kansas  during  Brown's  absence  from  the  Territory,  are  drawn 
from   Rhodes,  Andreas,  Holloway,  Robinson's  Kansas  Conflict,  Gihon,  Wilder, 
the  manuscript  history  of  Louis  A.  Reese,  and  the  publications  of  the  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

74.  The  originals  of  these  letters  of  August  8  and  10  to  Mr.  Stearns  are  in  the 
possession  of  the  Stearns  family. 

75.  These  quotations  from  the  Duty  of  the  Soldier  are  taken  from  Augustus 
Wattles's  copy,  bearing  John  Brown's  manuscript  annotations,  in  the  posses 
sion  of  the  author. 

76.  Sanborn,  p.  422;  A.  B.  Hart,  Life  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase,  Boston,  1899, 
p.  174. 

77.  Gerrit  Smith  to  Thaddeus  Hyatt,   Peterboro,    September    12,    1857. — 
Original  in  Hyatt  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

78.  Redpath,  p.  197;  Todd's  Reminiscences,  p.  156. 

79.  Hugh  Forbes  to  Charles  Sumner,  December  27,  1857.  —  Original  in  Sum- 
ner  Correspondence  in  Harvard  University  Library. 

80.  Todd's  Reminiscences,  pp.  154-155. 

81.  Statement  of  Rev.  H.  D.  King,  Kinsman,  Ohio,  January  4-5,  1909,  to 
K.  Mayo. 

82.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

83.  Letter  of  Rev.  John  Todd,  May  25,  1892,  cited  in  Richman's  John  Brown 
Among  the  Quakers,  pp.  16-17;  John  Brown  to  F.  B.  Sanborn,  August  13,  1857, 
Sanborn,  p.  413. 

84.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

85.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

86.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

87.  From  copy  in  possession  of  the  Stearns  family. 

88.  James  Redpath  to  Captain  Brown,  Falls  City,  Nebraska,  September  20, 
1857,  from  a  copy  in  the  Stearns  Papers. 

89.  See  Higginson's  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  pp.  204-205.     Both  he  and  Samuel 
F.  Tappan  were  made  brigadier-generals. 

90.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

91.  John  Brown  to  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Tabor,  October  I,  1857,  Sanborn,  p.  401. 

92.  From  copy  of  original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 
',  93.  This  is  the  October  I  letter  referred  to  above. 

94.  From  the  same  letter. 

95.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Remington,  Osawatomie,  Kansas. 

96.  F.  B.  Sanborn  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Boston,  September  u,  1857.  —  Original 
in  T.  W.  Higginson  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

97.  Compare  with  this   opinion  of  Sanborn,  Hinton's  assertion,  in  his  Life, 
p.  136,  that  Brown  was  a  "Unionist  of  Unionists,  a  Loyalist  of  Loyalists." 

98.  E.  B.  Whitman  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  Lawrence,  October  25,  1857.  —  Original 
in  Stearns  Papers. 

99.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

100.  E.  B.  Whitman  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  Lawrence,  February  20,  1858.  —  Original 
in  Stearns  Papers. 

101.  W.  A.  Johnson,  History  of  Anderson  County,  Kansas,  Garnett  (Kansas), 
1877,  p.  no;  Holloway,  p.  508. 

102.  Original  in  Stearns  Papers. 

103.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Remington. 


626  NOTES 

104.  Stearns  to  E.  B.  Whitman.  —  Original  in  Colonel  E.  B.  Whitman  Papers, 
in  possession  of  E.  B.  Whitman,  Boston. 

105.  Letter  of  R.  G.  Elliott  to  K.  Mayo,  Lawrence,  August  6, 1908 ;  also,  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  10,  p.  187. 

106.  See  pamphlet  entitled  Confession  of  John  E.  Cook,  brother-in-law  of  Gov 
ernor  A.  P.  Willard,  of  Indiana,  and  one  of  the  participants  in  the  Harper's 
Ferry  Invasion.  Published  for  the  benefit  of  Samuel  C.  Young,  Charlestown,  1859. 


CHAPTER  IX 
A  CONVENTION  AND  A  POSTPONEMENT 

1.  Confession  of  John  E.  Cook,  p.  6. 

2.  Kagi  was  twenty-three,  Cook  twenty-eight,  Realf  twenty-three,  Stevens 
twenty-seven,  Parsons  twenty-five,  Leeman  eighteen,  Tidd  twenty-three,  Moffet 
thirty,  Owen  Brown  thirty-three,  and  Stewart  Taylor  twenty-two. 

3.  Statement  of  L.  F.  Parsons,  Salina,  Kan.,  October  7,  1908,  to  the  author. 

4.  Ibid. 

5.  Statement  of  George  B.  Gill  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  His 
torical  Society. 

6.  Those  from  which  these  and  subsequent  quotations  are  drawn  are,  first, 
extracts  from  December  21  to  February  17,  in  the  Richmond  Daily  Whigoi  Octo 
ber  29,  1859;  second,  from  August  25  to  December  8,  quoted  in  the  N.  Y.  Times; 
third,  from  March  13  to  March  28,  in  the  Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  His 
torical  Society. 

7.  Richman,  John  Brown  Among  the  Quakers,  pp.  12-13.    Annie  Brown  Adams 
declares  the  Townsend  incident  apocryphal. 

8.  John  Brown's  Memorandum-Book  No.  2,  entries  of  December  30,  1857,  and 
January  n,  1858,  in  Boston  Public  Library. 

9.  Letter  to  Dr.  Howe,  May  14,  1858,  published  in  the  New  York  Herald  of 
October  27,  1859. 

10.  Statement  of  Luke  F.  Parsons  to  Redpath  and  Hinton,  Osawatomie,  De 
cember,  1859,  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

11.  Richman,  pp.  26-27. 

12.  Ibid.,  pp.  28-29. 

13.  Statement  of  L.  F.  Parsons  to  the  author,  October,  1908. 

14.  Richman,  p.  23. 

15.  John  Brown's  Memorandum  Book  No.  2,  entry  for  January  28,  1858. 

16.  See  letter  of  Owen  Brown,  of  February  28,  1858,  —  copy  in  possession  of 
Miss  Thompson;    also  letter  of  Jason  Brown,  January  29,  1858,  —  original  in 
possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

17.  Frederick  Douglass,  Life  and  Times,  p.  353. 

1 8.  Testimony  of  Senator  Wilson  before  Mason  Committee,  Mason  Report, 
p.  140  et  seq. 

19.  Testimony  of  William  H.  Seward,  Mason  Report,  p.  253. 

20.  Forbes  to  Dr.  Howe,  April  19,  1858,  published  in  N.  Y.  Herald  of  October 
29,  1859- 

21.  John  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Sanborn,  pp.  432-433;  Memorandum- 
Book,  entry  of  February  9. 

22.  John  Brown  to  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Rochester,  February  17,  1858.  —  Original 
in  Higginson  Collection. 


NOTES  627 

23.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

24.  John  Brown  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Rochester,  February  2,  1858. —  Original 
in  the  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

25.  Frothingham's  Gerrit  Smith,  first  edition,  p.  237. 

26.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Peterboro,  February  24,  1858.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

27.  See  Sanborn's  Life,  and  especially  in  vol.  I  of  his  Recollections  of  Seventy 
Years,  Boston,  1909,  the  chapter  entitled  'Aftermath  of  the  John  Brown  Foray,' 
where  the  relations  of  Mr.  Smith  to  the  enterprise  are  set  forth  in  greater  detail 
than  ever  before.  See  also  first  edition  of  O.  B.  Frothingham's  Gerrit  Smith;  the 
later  editions  were  altered  by  taking  out  unfavorable  statements. 

28.  Sanborn,  Recollections,  vol.  I,  p.  147. 
.    29.  Sanborn,  p.  444  (in  facsimile). 

30.  See  Memorandum-Book  No.  2  for  confirmatory  evidence  of  Brown's  move 
ments  during  this  period. 

31.  Memorandum-Book  No.  2;  Sanborn,  Life,  p.  451;  Hinton,  p.  169. 

32.  Sanborn,  pp.  450-451;  see  also  letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  reply  to  his 
father,  Lindenville,  Ashtabula,  February  13,  1858.  —  Original  in  possession  of 
Miss  Brown. 

33.  Henry  Thompson,  Salmon  Brown,  Annie  Brown  Adams  and  Miss  Sarah 
Brown  all  share  this  feeling,  and  have  so  stated  to  the  author. 

34.  Letter  of  January  30,  1858,  as  above. 

35.  Henry  Thompson  to  John  Brown,  North  Elba,  April  21,  1858.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

36.  John  Weiss,  Life  of  Parker,  vol.  2,  p.  164. 

37.  Sanborn,  p.  449. 
.    38.  Sanborn,  p.  443. 

'    39.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 
'•    40.  See  telegram  of  George  L.  Stearns  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Boston,  March  18, 
1858,  and  letter  of  F.  B.  Sanborn  to  the  same,  Boston,  March  21,  1858,  —  both 
originals  in  T.  W.  Higginson  Collection. 

41.  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  219. 

42.  James  Freeman  Clarke's  Anti-Slavery  Days,  pp.  153-154. 
1    43.  Sanborn,  p.  451. 

44.  Memorandum-Book  No.  2,  and  letter  of  John  Brown  to  his  son  John,  April 
8,  1858,  Sanborn,  p.  452. 

45.  'John  Brown  in  Canada,'  by  James  C.  Hamilton,  Canadian  Magazine,  De 
cember,  1894;  The  Underground  Railroad,  by  William  H.  Siebert,  New  York, 
1898,  pp.  221-222. 

46.  J.  C.  Hamilton,  'John  Brown  in  Canada,'  as  above  cited. 

47.  Life  and  Public  Services  of  Martin  R.  Delany,  by  Frank  A.  Rollins,  Boston, 
1868,  pp.  85-90. 

48.  Mrs.  E.  S.  Butler,  in  the  Midland  Monthly,  November,  1898. 

49.  Owen  Brown  to  his  father,  Springdale,  February  28,   1858. — Copy  in 
possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

50.  Letter  of  Moses  and  Charlotte  Varney,  pp.  96-98  of  Appendix  to  Message 
I,  Documents  relative  to  the  Harper's  Ferry  Invasion,  printed  by  the  State  of 
Virginia,  1859. 

51.  The  original  of  this  letter  is  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Henry  B.  Stevens,  of 
Boston.   Leeman's  letters  are  in  the  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

52.  Testimony  of  Richard  Realf  before  Mason  Committee,  Mason  Report, 
p.  95;  narrative  of  George  B.  Gill.  Hinton  Papers. 


628  NOTES 

53.  Richman,  pp.  32~33- 

54.  Ibid.,  p.  36. 

55.  This  narrative  of  the  Chatham  proceedings  is  based  on  the  Journal  of  the 
two  conventions  published  in  the  Appendix  to  Message  I,  by  the  State  of  Vir 
ginia;  on  Realf's  testimony  before  the  Mason  Committee;  on  Cook's  Confession; 
and  on  'John  Brown  in  Canada,'  by  J.  C.  Hamilton. 

The  thirty-four  colored  men  actually  in  attendance  were,  besides  Munroe, 
Osborn  P.  Anderson,  Richardson,  Delany,  and  J.  H.  Harris,  Stephen  Ditten, 
James  Smith,  Charles  Smith,  Isaac  Hobbar,  Thomas  Hickerson,  John  Connel, 
George  Akin,  Elias  Chitman,  Robert  Newman,  J.  B.  Shadd,  Simon  Fisher,  John 
A.  Thomas,  Robert  Van  Vruken,  Thomas  W.  Stringer,  Thomas  M.  Kinnard, 
Thomas  F.  Cary,  Robinson  Alexander,  James  W.  Purnell,  J.  C.  Grant,  J.  G. 
Reynolds,  A.  J.  Smith,  James  M.  Jones,  M.  F.  Bailey,  W.  Lambert,  S.  Hunton, 
Job  J.  Jackson,  Alfred  Whipper,  James  M.  Bell  and  Alfred  L.  Ellsworth. 

56.  Realf's  testimony,  Mason  Report,  pp.  96-98. 

57.  As  printed  in  the  Appendix  to    Message  I,  Documents  relative  to  the 
Harper's  Ferry  Invasion,  Virginia  State  Papers. 

58.  John  Brown,  by  Dr.  Hermann  von  Hoist,  Boston,  1889,  edited  by  Frank 
Preston  Stearns,  pp.  109-111.    "To  judge  by  the  provisions  of  this  extraordinary 
document  [the  Constitution],  the  conduct  of  a  revolution  never  fell  into  hands 
more  utterly  unable  to  direct  it.   It  would  seem  that  Mr.  Brown  and  his  friends 
had  no  conception  of  any  manner  of  carrying  on  public  business.  .  .  ."  —  London 
Times,  November  4,  1859. 

59.  Hinton,  pp.  180-181. 

60.  Sanborn,  p.  456. 
<   61.  Ibid. 

62.  John  Brown  to  his  son  Owen  and  others  of  his  men,  Chatham,  May  18, 
1858.  —  Originally  printed  in  Davenport,  Iowa,  Gazette,  February  27,  1878. 

63.  From  the  same  to  the  same,  May  21,  1858,  in  Davenport  Gazette,  Febru 
ary  27,  1878. 

64.  See  letter  of  Richard  Realf  to  John  Brown,  Cleveland,  May  31,  1858,  — 
original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society;  also  letter  of   L.  F.  Parsons  to  Leeman, 
Cleveland,  May  16,  1858,  —  original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

65.  Richard  Realf  to  John  Brown,  as  above. 

66.  Memorandum-Book  No.  2;  Realf  testimony,  Mason  Report;  telegram  of 
Sanborn  to  Higginson,  Boston,  May  31,  1858,  —  original  in  Higginson  Collection. 
It  is  stated  by  Sanborn,  Hinton,  Chadwick  and  others  that  Brown  met  Stearns 
in  New  York  on  or  about  May  20.    This  is  erroneous,  as  the  two  letters  from 
Chatham  of  May  18  and  May  21  prove.  He  could  not  then  leave  Chatham,  for 
lack  of  funds;  and  had  he  done  so,  he  would  have  had  no  reason  for  returning,  as 
his  work  in  Canada  was  done.    Had  he  made  such  a  costly  flying  trip  to  New 
York,  it  must  have  appeared  in  his  correspondence  or  his  memorandum-book. 

67.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

68.  Ibid. 

69.  Mason  Report,  p.  177. 

70.  Copy  in  Stearns  Papers. 

71.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

72.  Sanborn,  p.  466. 

73.  Ibid.,  p.  465. 

74-  The  Causes  of  the  Civil  War,  Rear  Admiral  F.  E.  Chadwick,  New  York, 
1906,  pp.  75-76. 

75.  Sanborn,  p.  350. 


NOTES  629 

76.  For  the  movements  of  the  arms,  see  letter  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  his  father, 
Lindenville,  Ohio,  May   I,  1858,  —  original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown;  also 
statements  of  Mrs.  E.  A.  Fobes  and  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  B.  Noxon,  Wayne,  Ohio, 
of  Mrs.  Fred  Blakeslee,  Ashtabula,  Ohio,  of  Charles  D.  Ainger,  Andover,  Ohio, 
in  January,  1909,  all  to  K.  Mayo;  statements  of  Miss  Rebecca  Dean,  Jefferson, 
Ohio,  July  9,  1897,  and  of  Mrs.  Edwin  King,  Dunkirk,  N.  Y.,  June  22,  1897,  to 
Mrs.  E.  L.  Mark,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  both  in  possession  of  the  author;  see 
also  Sanborn,  p.  494 

77.  Sanborn,  p.  471. 

78.  Statement  of  Gill,  Hinton,  p.  733;  Kagi  to  "Friend  Addie"  [L.  F.  Parsons], 
Moneka,  Kansas,  August  13,  1858, — original  in  Mr.  Parsons's  possession. 

79.  For  this  dispersing  of  the  men,  see  Gill's  narrative,  in  Hinton,  p.  734; 
statement  of  Luke  F.  Parsons  to  author;  his  letter  of  May  26,  1858,10  George 
B.  Gill,  in  Hinton  Papers ;   and  various  letters  of  the   conspirators  to  each 
other. 

80.  Owen  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Akron,  July  12,  1858.  —  Original  in  possession 
of  Mrs.  Brown. 

81.  Statement  to  author,  Salina,  Kansas,  October  7,  1908. 

82.  Letter  to  Hinton,  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society,  marked 
"1878  or  1879." 

83.  Redpath's  John  Brown,  pp.  199-200.    Hinton  and  Redpath  were  in  error 
in  this  statement,  as  will  be  seen  later.   The  actual  date  of  Brown's  arrival  was 
Saturday,  June  26,  1858.  The  special  correspondent  of  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  writing 
from  Lawrence,  Kansas,  June  27,  1858,  said:  "Our  'warrior  of  the  Lord  and  of 
Gideon'  —  the  renowned  Old  Brown  —  has  just  arrived  in  Lawrence.  He  leaves 
to-morrow  morning  to  visit  Capt.  Montgomery."  — N.  Y.  Tribune,  July  8,  1858. 


CHAPTER  X 
SHUBEL  MORGAN,   WARDEN  OF   THE  MARCHES 

i  •  I.  These  figures  are  taken  from  Reese's  MS.  history,  The  Admission  of  Kan 
sas,  Mr.  Reese  having  made  a  most  accurate  re-study  of  all  the  returns  of  the 
various  elections. 

2.  Cf.  Rhodes,  vol.  2,  p.  301. 

3.  The  author  has  been  fortunate  in  having  at  his  disposal,  besides  the  accounts 
of  the  Hamilton  Massacre  in  Andreas,  pp.  1104-1105,  and  Tomlinson's  Kansas 
in  1858  (chapter  v),  the  narrative  of  Elias  Snyder,  son  of  the  blacksmith,  as  told 
to  the  author  at  the  scene  of  the  massacre,  which  Mr.  Snyder  was  the  first  to  reach 
after  the  crime.   Other  narratives  are  those  of  Ed  R.  Smith,  Kansas  Historical 
Society  Collections,  vol.  6,  pp.  365-370;  of  B.  L.  Read,  Linn  Co.  Scrap-Book, 
Kansas  Historical  Society;  and  of  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  May  28,  and  June  2  and  7, 
1858.   Not  until  October  30,  1863,  was  any  one  punished  for  this  crime.   Then 
William  Griffith  was  hanged,  with  William  Hairgrove,  a  survivor,  as  executioner. 

4.  See  Tomlinson,  pp.  81-84. 

5.  N.  Y.  Evening  Post,  June  4,  1858;  letter  signed  G.  W.  N. 

6.  Statement  of  Mrs.  J.  C.  Burnett,  Topeka,  August  3,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

7.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Emma  Wattles  Morse,  Mound  City,  Kansas,  to  the 
author,  October  2,  1908. 

8.  Andreas,  p.  1104. 

9.  See  Andreas,  p.  1107;  for  Montgomery's  shocking  vandalism  in  the  Civil 


630  NOTES 

War,  see  The  Story  of  a  Brave  Black  Regiment  (the  54th  Massachusetts  Infantry), 
by  Luis  F.  Emilio,  Boston,  1894,  pp.  41-44. 

10.  Capt.  George  T.  Anderson,  First  U.  S.  Cavalry,  resigned  June  n,  1858, 
Official  Army  Register  for  1859,  p.  37. 

11.  Andreas,  pp.  1102-1103. 

12.  Governor  Denver  to  Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  State,  Lecompton,  June  23, 
1858,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  531-535;  also  his  letter  of 
June  7,  ibid.,  pp.  528-530.  See  also  letter  of  Governor  Denver  to  the  N.  Y.  Tribune 
of  October  15,  1858,  describing  Montgomery's  and  other  Free  State  men's  lawless 
acts,  and  reviewing  the  whole  disorder. 

13.  Printed  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  April  23,  1858. 

14.  Redpath,  pp.  200-201. 

15.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library,  here  printed  for 
the  first  time. 

16.  Sanborn,  p.  473. 

17.  Elias  Snyder,  statement  to  W.  E.  Connelley,  October  18,  1907,  and  to  the 
author,  October  2,  1908,  at  the  scene  of  the  Hamilton  Massacre,  on  the  Snyder 
claim. 

1 8.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

19.  From  the  copy  made  by  John  Brown,  Jr.,  now  in  possession  of  Miss 
Thompson. 

20.  See  letter  of  A.  Wattles,  dated  Moneka,  November  4,  1859,  in  Missouri 
Republican,  November  26,  1859.    Two  of  Brown's  sons,  Jason  and  John,  Jr., 
opposed  this  plan,  in  letters  of  October  10,  1858,  and  August  24,   1858,  whose 
originals  are  now  respectively  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Brown  and  of  Miss 
Thompson.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  wrote :  "  But  many  a  man  has  committed  his  greatest 
blunder  when  attempting  to  write  a  book." 

21.  See  letter  of  Kagi  to  his  sister,  Moneka,  August  13,  1858:  "Since  I  wrote 
you  from  Lawrence,  I  have  been  busily  engaged  in  fortifying  along  the  State 
line,  to  prevent  further  inroads  from  Missouri;"  in  the  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas 
Historical  Society;  see  also  George  B.  Gill's  MS.  marked  "  1860  or  '61,"  in  the 
Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

22.  Statement  of  Register  J.  G.  Wood,  of  the  U.  S.  Land  Office,  Topeka,  July 
5,  1908;  see  also  letter  of  George  W.  Martin,  in  the  Topeka  Capital  of  September 
17,  1905;  interview  of  Ed  R.  Smith  in  the  Mound  City  Republic,  September  22, 
1905;  letter  of  the  same  in  the  Topeka  Capital,  August  31,  1905;  also  George  B. 
Gill's  MS.  referred  to  above,  for  Kagi's  statement  that  negotiations  of  purchase 
were  begun  between  Brown  and  Snyder. 

23.  From  an  article  by  W.  A.  Mitchell,  entitled  '  Historic  Linn,'  in  La  Cygne, 
Kansas,  Journal,  June  7,  1895. 

24.  See  Sanborn,  p.  366;  also  narrative  of  William  Hutchinson,  Kansas  His 
torical  Society  Collections,  vol.  7,  p.  397. 

25.  Captain  Eli  Snyder  to  James  H.  Holmes,  at  Osawatomie,  in  1894,  original 
in  possession  of  the  author. 

26.  James  Hanway  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  December  5,  1859,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas 
Historical  Society. 

27.  Statement  of  Charles  S.  Adair  to  James  H.  Holmes,  May  11,  1904,  original 
in  possession  of  the  author;  also  letter  of  the  same  to  the  author,  January  27, 
1909. 

28.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  G.  A.  Miller,  Hudson,  Ohio. 

29.  Statement  of  Mrs.  J.  B.  Remington  to  the  author,  at  Osawatomie,  October 
2,  1908. 


NOTES  631 

30.  Kagi  to  his  sister,  Lawrence,  September  23,  1858.  —  Original  in  Hinton 
Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

31.  These  two  letters  are  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

32.  Mason  Report,  Conway  testimony,  pp.  204-208;  see  also  Martin  F.  Con- 
way's  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Herald  of  Freedom,  quoted  in  the  White  Cloud 
Kansas  Chief,  of  December,  1859. 

33.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

34.  Sanborn,  p.  465. 

35.  Mason  Report,  p.  206. 

36.  Sanborn,  p.  465;  the  original  of  the  receipt  for  the  goods  is  in  the  hands  of 
E.  B.  Whitman,  of  Boston. 

37.  This  letter,  also,  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Whitman  the  younger. 

38.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

39.  Sanborn,  p.  465. 

40.  Mason  Report,  pp.  69-70. 

41.  Mrs.  George  Plumb,  widow  of  Senator  Plumb,  to  William  Allen  White, 
November,  1909.    Brown  went  to  see  Messrs.  Stores  and  Eckbridge,  of  Em- 
poria. 

42.  Kagi,  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  November  n,  1858.  This  statement  of  Kagi's 
should  be  compared  with  the  following  mistaken  editorial  comment  of  the  Tribune 
of  October  21,  1859:  "Even  after  the  partisan  war  had  been  appeased  in  other 
parts  of  the  Territory,  it  was  kept  up  in  Southern  Kansas,  and  Brown  had  an 
actual  part  in  it.   He  began  on  the  principle  of  defence  —  he  now  acted  on  that 
of  revenge." 

43.  See  letter  of  Kagi  in  Lawrence,  Kansas,  Republican,  December  9,  1858; 
Gill  MS.,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

44.  Gill  MS.,  cited  above. 

45.  Originals  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

46.  Statements  of  Mrs.  Emma  Wattles  Morse  and  of  Mrs.  Sarah  Wattles  Hiatt, 
to  the  author,  at  Mound  City,  Kansas,  October  2,  1908. 

47.  Mr.  Gill's  statement  of  November  12,  1908,  at  Attica,  Kansas,  to  K.  Mayo. 

48.  Theodosius  Botkin,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  7,  p.  440; 
Gill  MS.,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

49.  See  Executive  Minutes  for  1858,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections, 
vol.  5,  p.  547- 

50.  Governor  S.  Medary  to  President  James  Buchanan,  January  31,  1859, 
Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  602. 

51.  A.  J.  Weaver  to  acting  Governor  Walsh,  Paris,  November  26, 1858,  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  551. 

52.  Lawrence  Republican,  December  23,  1858. 

53.  Sheriff  C.  M.  M' Daniel  to  acting  Governor  Walsh,  Paris,  December  3, 
1858,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  551-552. 

54.  J.  W.  Weaver  to  acting  Governor  Walsh,  November  15,  1858,  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  548. 

55.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

56.  See  N.  Y.  Tribune,  December  29, 1858,  for  letter  from  Moneka,  Kansas,  of 
December  8;  also  Kagi's  account  in  the  Lawrence  Republican  of  December  23, 
1858. 

57.  Another  treaty,  drafted  by  John  Brown,  and  in  his  handwriting,  which  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  published  heretofore,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Wattles 
family,  also  bearing  date  of  January  I,  1859,  and  carrying  the  signature  of  several 
persons.    It  reads  thus: 


632  NOTES 

The  undersigned  have  this  day  entered  into  the  following  pledge  or  agreement 
(viz)  That  hereafter  we  will  not  either  as  a  company,  or  companies;  or  as  indi 
viduals;  be  concerned  or  in  any  way  connected  with  the  robbing  plundering  or  in 
any  other  way  molesting  of  any  person,  or  persons;  whose  case  shall  not  have  been 
thoroughly  examined  &  decided  upon  (by  a  regularly  chosen  committee  of  discreet 
members)  as  one  requireing  attention;  or  punishment.  And  we  further  agree  to 
hold  as  enemies  of  the  community  &  of  this  organization  all  &  every  unprincipled 
person;  or  persons  who  shall  for  the  sake  of  plunder  disturb  any  inhabitant  of  the 
territory  of  the  adjoining  State;  &  to  deal  with  them  accordingly.  And  we  hereby 
further  agree  to  make  an  equal  distribution  of  all  property  captured  by  any  com 
pany  of  the  members  to  the  company  making  such  capture  &  to  insist  upon  the 
observance  of  this  rule  by  all  the  members. 
KANSAS  ist  Jany  1859. 

58.  Andreas,  p.  1070;  Hinton,  p.  218;  Holloway,  pp.  542-543;  Report  of  Sam 
uel  Walker,  Deputy  U.  S.  Marshal,  to  Governor  Medary,  Kanwaka,  January  3, 
1859,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  577-578;  see  also  other  cor 
respondence  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  561  et  seq.;  N.  Y. 
Tribune,  January  8,  1859. 

59.  T.  F.  Robley,  History  of  Bourbon  County,  Fort  Scott,  1894,  p.  128  et  seq.; 
C.  W.  Goodman,  Memoirs  and  Recollections  of  the  Early  Days  of  Fort  Scott,  Fort 
Scott,  1899,  p.  79;  James  Hanway,  in  Lawrence  Daily  Tribune,  May  30,  1881; 
Andreas,  p.  1070. 

60.  Andreas,  p.  1070. 

61.  It  was  at  this  period  that  Brown  was  first  intimately  thrown  with  two  of 
his  future  followers,  Albert  Hazlett  and  Jeremiah  Anderson.   On  the  day  of  the 
Fort  Scott  raid  he  was  at  Wimsett  farm,  the  rendezvous;  near  by  lived  Anderson's 
brother,  with  whom  Brown  then  spent  a  few  days.  —  G.  B.  Gill,  Milan,  Kansas, 
May  10,  1893,  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

62.  Governor  Medary  to  President  James  Buchanan,  Lecompton,  December 
28,  1858,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  565-566;  ibid.,  pp.  580- 
581  et  seq. 

63.  Narrative  of  George  B.  Gill,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

64.  'John  Brown's  Raids,'  by  Burr  Joyce,  in  the  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat  for 
April  15,  1888. 

65.  Ibid.;  see  also  St.  Louis  Missouri  Democrat  of  December  30,  1858,  for  pro- 
slavery  account  of  losses.  This  is  indubitably  an  exaggeration. 

66.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Annie    Brown  Adams  to  K.  Mayo,  Petrolia,  Cal.» 
October  2,  1908. 

67.  Article  of  Burr  Joyce  as  aforesaid. 

68.  George  B.  Gill  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  Milan,  Kansas,  May  10,  1893,  Hinton 
Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

69.  Harrisonville,  Mo.,  Democrat,  quoted  in  Kansas  Herald,  Leavenworth  City, 
January  8,  1859. 

70.  Wyandotte  Western  Argus,  January  15,  1859. 

71.  Lawrence  Republican,  January   6,   1859;   Kansas  Herald,   Leavenworth, 
January  29,  1859;  George  A.  Crawford^  to  James  Buchanan,  President,  Kansas 
Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  579-580.  The  Herald  of  Freedom,  of  course, 
did  not  lose  the  opportunity  to  assail  Brown.    It  declared  on  January  22,  1859, 
after  condemning  Brown  and  Montgomery:  "If  the  people  of  Missouri  should 
raise  an  army  and  march  over  into  Linn  county  and  wipe  the  perpetrators  of  those 
wrongs  from  existence,  all  of  us  would  join  in  denouncing  the  outrage,  and  yet 
such  transactions  as  those  Brown  rejoices  over  are  inaugurating  a  state  of  things 


NOTES  633 

which  can  only  be  seen  through  a  river  of  blood.  .  .  .  Brown  should  be  arrested 
and  set  to  work  on  the  public  improvements  at  Jefferson  City,  Mo.,  until  he  is  re 
stored  to  reason,  and  unless  we  mistake  such  will  be  the  case,  unless  he  hangs  for 
murder.  .  .  ."  Again,  a  few  days  later,  February  2,  1859,  it  said:  '"Old  Brown' 
and  a  portion  of  his  piratical  band  have  escaped  into  Nebraska,  no  doubt  on  their 
way  East.  On  their  arrival  they  will  make  a  demand  upon  the  charitable  for 
contributions  to  pay  for  their  expenses  while  engaged  in  robbing  the  people  of 
Kansas.  We  do  wish  Gerrit  Smith  could  know  Brown  as  he  is.  If  so,  instead  of 
lending  him  further  pecuniary  assistance,  he  would  exert  all  his  energies  to  send 
him  to  an  Insane  Asylum." 

72.  Herald  of  Freedom,  January  15,  1859. 

73.  Osawatomie  letter  of  December  27,  1859,  in  the  Missouri  Democrat  for 
January  5,  1859. 

74.  Governor  Medary  to  the  Kansas  Legislature,  House  Journal,  1859,  p.  44. 

75.  Mrs.  Emma  Wattles  Morse,  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  reprinted  in  the  Linn 
County  Republic,  Mound  City,  Kansas,  May  28,  1897. 

76.  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair  to  James  Hanway,  Osawatomie,  Kansas,  February  2,  1878, 
Hanway  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

77.  MS.  of  William  H.  Ambrose,  entitled  'The  Concealment  of  the  Twelve 
on  the  Pottawatomie;'  see  also  letter,  with  map,  of  James  Hanway,  to  F.  G. 
Adams,  Lane,  Kansas,  February,  1878,  both  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

78.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  7,  pp.  398-399. 

79.  John  Brown  to  James  Montgomery,  Turkey  Creek,  January  2,   1859, 
Montgomery  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  here  utilized  for  the  first  time. 

80.  Letter  signed  "Marcus,"  Moneka,  Kansas,  January  22,  1859,  in  Lawrence 
Republican,  February  3,  1859;  see  also  letter  from  Moneka,  January  24,  1859,  in 
the  same  issue. 

81.  Original  in  George  W.  Brown  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society.  In  his 
letter  of  March,  1859,  to  John  Teesdale,  Brown  positively  denied  that  he  had 
been  asked  to  leave  Kansas.  This  letter  was  printed  in  the  New  York  Evening 
Sunoi  March  16,  1895. 

82.  Mason  Report,  p.  223. 

83.  See  article  of  Mrs.  Ernma  Wattles  Morse. 

84.  From  an  original  draft,  in  Brown's  handwriting,  in  the  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

85.  The  "atrocity  "  of  Brown's  raid,  painted  in  the  richest  colors,  was  described 
to  Buchanan  by  Lieut.  J.  P.  Jones,  of  the  Second  United  States  Artillery,  who 
had  frequently  traversed  southern  Kansas  for  Governor  Denver,  whose  aide  he 
had  been.   Lieutenant  Jones,  who  was  new  to  the  army,  could  always  see  the 
Free  State  mote  and  never  the  Pro-Slavery  beam;  Hamilton's  massacre,  according 
to  him,  took  place  in  a  fair  and  honorable  combat!  See  Lieut.  J.  P.  Jones  and 
B.  J.  Newsom  to  Governor  Denver,  Lecompton,  June  3,  1858,  Kansas  Historical 
Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  526-538;  Lieut.  J.  P.  Jones  to  President  James 
Buchanan,  Washington,  D.  C.,  January  9,  1859,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Col 
lections,  vol.  5,  pp.  585-587- 

86.  Governor  Medary  to  the  Kansas  Legislature,  January  u,  1859,  House 
Journal,  1859,  p.  44  et  seq. 

87.  Kansas  House  Journal,  1859,  p.  57  et  seq.,  and  p.  64. 

88.  Reprinted  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  January  29,  1859. 

89.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  January  29,  1859,  Lawrence  correspondence. 

90.  Governor  Medary  to  President  Buchanan,  Lawrence,  February  2,  1859, 
Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  602.  Montgomery  was  at  the  time 


634  NOTES 

in  extreme  poverty,  and  the  rank  and  pay  of  a  colonel  of  volunteers  were  very 
welcome  when  he  was  entrusted,  thirty  months  later,  with  the  raising  of  the  Third 
Kansas  Infantry,  to  aid  in  the  defence  of  the  Union. 

91.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  January  28,  1859. 

92.  See  letter  of  Gerrit  Smith  to  Sanborn,  Peterboro,  January  22,  1859,  San- 
born,  p.  483. 

93.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  pp.  603-604 ;  Herald  of  Freedom, 
February  19,  1859. 

94.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

95.  Statement  of  George  B.  Gill  to  Hinton. 

96.  Samuel  F.  Tappan,  Washington,  D.  C.,  December  19,  1907,  to  the  author. 
To  Brown's  disappointment,  he  received  here  a  letter  from  Martin  F.  Conway, 
advising  him  that  he  need  not  expect  further  aid  from  E.  B.  Whitman. 

97.  Narrative  of  John  Doy,  [by  Himself],  Boston,  1860,  pp.  23-27, 123  and  130- 
132. 

98.  Gill  says  that  he  left  Grover's,  "riding  a  fine  stallion  which  Brown  had 
given  Hazlett  a  forty-acre  land  warrant  for.  The  land  warrant  Gerrit  Smith  had 
sent  Brown,  and  the  stallion  Hazlett  had  picked  up  down  in  Missouri.  Brown 
afterward  sold  it  at  auction  in  Cleveland." 

99.  MS.  statement  of  Olive  Owen,  Topeka,  1904,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

100.  There  is  some  confusion  of  dates  at  this  point,  but  those  here  given  seem 
accurate.   They,  like  the  following  narrative  of  the  'Battle  of  the  Spurs,'  have 
been  deduced  from  the  story  of  William  F.  Creitz,  of  Holton,  Kansas,  to  James 
Redpath,  December  17,  1859,  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  'The 
Battle  of  the  Spurs,'  by  L.  L.  Kiene,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8, 
pp.  443-449;  letter  of  G.  M.  Seaman,  same  volume,  pp.  448-449;  statement  by 
William  Graham,  of  Sabetha,  Kansas,  to  W.  E.  Connelley,  January,  1901 ;  articles 
in  N.  Y.  Tribune,  February  12,  1859;  Lawrence  Republican,  February  10,  1859; 
Atchison  Freedom's  Champion,  February  12,  1859;  letter  of  John  H.  Kagi  to  Wil 
liam  A.  Phillips,  Tabor,  Iowa,  February  7,  1859;  letter  of  William  Hutchinson 
to  the  N.  Y.  Times,  February  4,  1859;  see  also  quotations  in  the  Cleveland  Plain 
Dealer  of  March  2, 1859,  from  the  Nebraska  City  News  and  the  Daily  St.  Joseph 
Gazette;  and  the  Missouri  Democrat  of  February  5  and  8,  1859. 

101.  Governor  S.  Medary  to  James  Buchanan,  President,  January  31  and 
February  2,  1859,  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  602. 

102.  Ibid.,  p.  601. 

103.  L.  L.  Kiene,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  447. 

104.  St.  Louis  Missouri  Democrat,  February  8,  1859. 

IO5*  Quoted  in  jjhe  Lawrence  Republican,  February  10,  1859. 

106.  B.  F.  Gue,  History  of  Iowa,  New  York,  1903,  vol.  I,  p.  381;  Gill's  narra 
tive  in  Hinton,  p.  225. 

107.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

108.  Statement  of  Rev.  H.  D.  King,  Kinsman,  Ohio,  January  4  and  5,  1909,  to 
K.  Mayo. 

109.  'John  Brown's  Last  Visit  to  Tabor,'  by  Prof.  J.  E.  Todd,  Annals  of  Iowa, 
Third  Series,  vol.  3,  p.  458  et  seq.,  April  to  July,  1898. 

no.  George  Gill  MS.  of  "1860  or  '61,"  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical 
Society. 

in.  From  the  copy  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Mary  Thompson. 

112.  Statement  of  Rev.  H.  D.  King;  and  Reminiscences  of  Rev.  John  Todd, 
pp.  159-161. 

113.  To  show  how  little  this  taking  of  the  horses  affected  strong  anti-slavery 


NOTES  635 

men  in  the  East,  it  is  worth  recording  that  John  A.  Andrew,  on  February  9,  1860, 
made  the  following  statement  before  the  Mason  Committee:  "  I  had  heard  it  fre 
quently  said  that  sometimes  during  the  controversy  between  free-State  men  and 
the  pro-slavery  men,  they  were  accustomed,  when  they  prevailed  against  each 
other,  to  treat  their  horses  as  fairly  the  spoils  of  war.  I  am  quite  confident  that  I 
had  heard  this  statement  made  in  connection  with  Captain  Brown,  but  I  did  not 
regard  him  singular  in  that  respect,  and  I  always  believed  and  do  now  believe 
that  the  free-State  men  were  acting  defensively  in  substantially  all  that  was  done 
by  them  in  Kansas."  —  Mason  Report,  p.  192. 

114.  This  itinerary  is  given  by  Gill  in  Hinton,  pp.  226-227. 

115.  This  letter  was  republished  without  exact  date  in  N.  Y.  Evening  Sun  of 
March  16,  1895. 

116.  At  another  time  Brown  justified  the  Missouri  raid  by  asserting  that  the 
Denver  truce  had  been  broken ;  that  it  was  in  accordance  with  his  settled  pol 
icy;  that  it  was  intended  as  a  "descriminating  blow"  at  slavery;  that  "it  was 
calculated  to  lessen  the  value  of  slaves;  "  and  finally  that  "it  was  (over  and  above 
all  other  motives)  right."    See  Startling  Incidents  and  Developments  of  Osawatomy 
Brown's  Insurrectory  and  Treasonable  Movements  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Virginia,  by 
A  Citizen  of  Harper's  Ferry,  Baltimore,  1859. 

117.  Men  and  Events  of  Forty  Years,  by  Josiah  Busnell  Grinnell,  Boston,  1891, 
p.  210  et  seq. 

1 18.  From  the  original,  in  possession  of  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

119.  This  narrative  of  the  attempt  to  capture  Brown  is  taken  from  the  History 
of  Johnson  County,  Iowa  City,  Iowa,  1883,  pp.  471-474. 

120.  This  letter  is  reprinted  in  Bulletin  for  May,   1900,  of  Boston  Public 
Library. 

121.  Gill  MS.  of  "i86oor'6i." 

122.  L.  R.  Witherell,  in  Davenport,  Iowa,  Gazette  of  March  13,  1878;  Mrs.  E.  S. 
Butler,  'A  Woman's  Recollections  of  John  Brown's  Stay  in  Springdale,'  Midland 
Monthly,  November,  1898,  p.  576;  Narcissa  Macy  Smith,  'Reminiscences  of  John 
Brown,'  Midland  Monthly,  September,  1895,  PP-  23I-236. 

123.  E.  H.  Gregg  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  December  22,  1895.  Mr. 
Gregg  was  an  employee  of  Keith's  Mill. 

124.  Iowa  City  Republican,  Leaflet  No.  n,  November  17,  1880. 

125.  Grinnell,  p.  216. 

126.  Major  Allan  Pinkerton's  paper  read  at  meeting  in  honor  of  Mrs.  John 
Brown ;  and  paper  by  John  Jones  read  at  the  same  time,  both  in  Chicago  Times,  Sep 
tember  i,  1882;  also  H.  O.  Waggoner,  in  Spokane,  Wash.,  Review  of  September  2, 
1892;  also  Kagi  to  Tidd,  Detroit,  March  13,  1859,  in  Document  No  I,  Appendix 
to  [Gov.  Wise's]  Message  I,  to  Virginia  Legislature,  December,  1859  (referred  to 
hereinafter  as  Document  No.  i);  Hinton,  pp.  227-228. 

127.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  March  17, 1859;  letter  of  Kagi  to  Tidd,  Detroit,  March  13, 
1859,  Document  No.  i,  p.  113. 

.  ,"•*:•  i- 

CHAPTER  XI 
THE  EVE  OF  THE  TRAGEDY 

I.  Mrs.  Amanda  M.  Sturtevant  to  James  Red  path,  Cleveland,  April  17,  1860, 
Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  Mrs.  Sturtevant,  in  Cleveland  Weekly 
Plain  Dealer,  November  9,  1859;  J.  W.  Schuckers,  in  Cleveland  Leader  for  April 


636  NOTES 

29,  1894;  Kagi  to  Tidd,  Detroit,  March  13,  1859;  Document  No.  i,  pp.  113- 

114- 

2.  Cleveland  Leader  of  March  21,  1859. 

3.  Cleveland  Daily  Plain  Dealer •,  March  22,  1859,  and  Weekly  Plain  Dealer, 
March  30,  1859. 

4.  J.  W.  Schuckers,  as  above. 

5.  Hinton,  p.  233. 

6.  J.  W.  Schuckers;  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author. 

7.  J.  W.  Schuckers. 

8.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Ashtabula,  Ohio,  March  25,  1859.  — 
Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

9.  See  N.  Y.  Tribune,  October  31,  1859,  and  Ashtabula  Sentinel,  November  15, 
1859,  giving  the  speech  of  J.  R.  Giddings  in  Philadelphia  on  Friday,  October  28, 
1859;  also  statement  of  Mrs.  Mary  Curtis  Giddings,  Jefferson,  Ohio,  January  2, 
1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

10.  Letter  of  Mrs.  Amanda  M.  Sturtevant  to  Redpath ;  statement  of  Mrs.  J.  H. 
Scott,  Oberlin,  Ohio,  December  9, 1908,  to  K.  Mayo;  J.  H.  Kagi,  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
April  4,  1859,  to  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  —  original  in  possession  of  Dr.    Thaddeus 
Hyatt,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.;  Kagi  to  H.  Thompson,  Cleveland,  April  21,  1859, — 
original  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

11.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Kingsville, Ohio,  April  7, 1859.  —  Original 
in  Byron  Reed  Collection,  in  Omaha  Public  Library. 

12.  Frothingham's  Gerrit  Smith,  first  edition,  p.  237. 

13.  John  Brown  to  Kagi,  Westport,  April  16,  1859,  Document  No.  I,  p.  135; 
Owen  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Akron,  May  2,  1859, —  original  in  possession  of 
Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr. 

14.  John  Brown  to  John  Henrie  (Kagi),  North  Elba,  April  25,  1859. — Original 
in  Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

15.  John  Brown's  Memorandum-Book  No.  2,  Boston  Public  Library. 

16.  Sanborn,  p.  467. 

17.  This  correspondence  between  Sanborn  and  Higginson  is  in  the  Higginson 
Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

18.  Higginson  to  John  Brown,  Brattleboro,  Vt.,  May  I,  1859,  Higginson  Col 
lection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

19.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  pp.  222-223. 

20.  Sanborn,  p.  523. 

21.  Document  No.  I,  p.  134. 

22.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger. 

23.  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Boston,  May  13,  1859.  —  Original  in  Byron 
Reed  Collection,  Omaha  Public  Library. 

24.  Memorandum-Book  No.  2. 

25.  A.  Bronson  Alcott,  MS.  statement  in  Mrs.  G.  L.  Stearns's  Emancipation 
Evening  Album,  in  possession  of  Stearns's  family. 

26.  John  Murray  Forbes,  Letters  and  Recollections,  edited  by  his  daughter, 
Sarah  Forbes  Hughes,  Boston,  1899,  vol.  I,  pp.  179-182. 

27.  Mason  Report,  p.  144. 

28.  Life  of  A.  A.  Lawrence,  p.  130. 

29.  Mason  Report,  p.  192. 

30.  Ibid.,  testimony  of  Henry  Wilson,  pp.  144-145. 

31.  Ibid.,  pp.  124-127,  testimony  of  Charles  Blair. 

32.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

33.  Sanborn,  p.  523. 


NOTES  637 

34.  This  portion  of  the  diary  will  be  found  in  the  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  25, 1859; 
see  also  letter  of  Oliver  Brown  to  his  wife,  West  Andover,  Ohio,  June  18,  1859, — 
original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

35.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Akron,  June  23,  1859. — Original  in  pos 
session  of  Miss  Thompson.  (Much  altered  in  Sanborn's  Life,  p.  526.) 

36.  Statement   of  Miss  Fannie  Dean,   Jefferson,   Ohio,   January  2,    1909,   to 
K.  Mayo,  and  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  Cleveland  Press,  May  3,  1895.   Statements 
of  Alfred  Hawkes,  Jefferson,  Ohio,  January  2,  1909,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  B.  Noxon, 
Wayne,  Ohio,  January  3,1909,  and  Charles  Garlick,  Jefferson,  January  2,  1909, 
all  to  K.  Mayo;  also  E.  C.  Lampson,  'The  Black  String  Band,'  Cleveland  Plain 
Dealer,  Octobers,  1899. 

37.  Original -in  Dreer  Collection. 

38.  Oliver  Brown  to  his  wife,  Bedford  Springs,  Pa.,  June  26,  1859,  —  original  in 
possession  of  Miss  Brown;  I.  Smith  (John  Brown)  to  John  Henrie  (Kagi),  Bedford, 
Pa.,  June  27,  1859,  —  original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

39.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

40.  Sanborn,  p.  527. 

41.  Mason  Report,  p.  5. 

42.  See  the  Unseld  testimony,  Mason  Report,  pp.  1-6,  for  details  of  the  move 
to  Kennedy  Farm. 

43.  Statement  of  Patrick  Higgins  to  the  author,  Sandy  Hook,  Maryland,  April, 
1908;  Unseld,  Mason  Report,  pp.  1-6. 

44.  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  Hinton,  Petrolia,  Cal.,  February  15,  1893.  —  Ori 
ginal  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

45.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown;  also  Brown's  diary,  N.  Y.  Herald, 
October  25,  1859. 

46.  Letter  of  Mary  A.  "Smith"  to  "Isaac  Smith,"  North  Elba,  June  29,  1859. 
—  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

47.  Mason  Report,  p.  4;  Isaac  Smith  (John  Brown)  to  his  family,  Chambers- 
burg,  July  22,  1859,  —  original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Ellen  Brown  Fablinger;  nar 
rative  of  Annie  Brown  Adams,  in  possession  of  the  author. 

48.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Memoirs  of  John  Brown,  Concord,  1878,  p.  73. 

49.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

50.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author;  see  also  Hinton's  John 
Brown,  p.  246. 

51.  I.  Smith  and  Sons  (John  Brown)  to  John  Henrie,  Harper's  Ferry,  Va.,  July 
12,  1859. — Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

52.  Letter  of  C.  W.  Moffet,  Document  No.  i,  pp.  iio-m. 

53.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  to  his  father,  Lindenville,  Ohio,  May  I,  1858.  —  Original 
in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

54.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

55.  John  Smith  (John  Brown,  Jr.)  to  J.  Henrie  (Kagi),  West  Andover,  July  27, 
1859,  Document  No.  i,  pp.  136-137;  the  same  to  the  same,  August  7,  1859. — 
Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

56.  J.  Henrie  to  Messrs.  I.  Smith  and  Sons,  Chambersburg,  August  n,  1859. — 
Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

57.  John  Brown  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  Chambersburg,  August,  1859,  printed  in 
N.  Y.  Herald,  October  25,  1859. 

58.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author. 

59.  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  Hinton,  Petrolia,  February  15,  1893,  as  above. 

60.  Virginia  Free  Press,  Charlestown,  W.  Va.,  April  5,  1860;  statement  of 


638  NOTES 

Mrs.  Virginia  Kennedy  Cook  Johnston,  Chicago,  November  23,  1908,  and  of 
Mr.  Cleon  Moore,  Charlestown,  April,  1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

61.  William  H.  Leeman,  Harper's  Ferry,  October  2,  1859,  to  his  mother. — 
Original  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

62.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

63.  Letter  of  August  6,  1859.  —  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

64.  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr. 

65.  Mason  Report,  testimony  of  Secretary  John  B.  Floyd,  pp.  250-252. 

66.  Statement  of  David  J.  Gue,  New  York,  November,  1907,  to  K.  Mayo; 
see  also  History  of  Iowa,  by  Benjamin  F.  Gue,  vol.  2,  pp.  26-30. 

67.  Sanborn  to  Higginson,  August  24,  September  4  and  14,  1859. —  Originals 
in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

68.  Document  No.  I,  p.  145. 

69.  Life  and  Times  of  Frederick  Douglass,  pp.  354-358.    For  Douglass's  con 
temporaneous  statement,  see  his  letter  from  Canada  West,  October  31,  1859, 
to  the  editor  of  the  Rochester  Democrat  and  American,  reprinted  in  the  Liberator 
of  November  n,  1859. 

70.  Document  No.  I,  p.  140. 

71.  Oliver  Brown  to  John  Brown,  North  Elba,  April  21,  1858. — Original  in 
possession  of  Miss  Brown;  statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams,   Petrolia,  Cal., 
October  2  and  3,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

72.  Document  No.  I,  pp.  137-138;  see  also  letter  of  the  same  to  the  same, 
West  Andover,  September  27,  1859,  in  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  25,  1859. 

73.  John  Brown  to  John  Henrie  (Kagi),  Washington  County,  Maryland,  August 
II,  1859.  —  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

74.  From  the  narrative  of  Owen  Brown,  written  at  his  dictation  by  Mrs.  Ruth 
Brown  Thompson,  —  in  possession  of  Miss  Thompson. 

75.  A   Voice  from  Harper's  Ferry,  by  Osborn  P.  Anderson,  Boston,   1861, 
p.  23. 

76.  Harriet  Newby's  pathetic  letters  to  her  husband  are  in  Document  No. 
I,  pp.  116-117. 

77.  Letters  of  Watson  Brown  to  Isabel,  his  wife,  Chambersburg,  September  8 
and  October  14,  "Home,"  September  28,  and  a  fourth,  undated,  —  from  copies 
in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

78.  Isabel  Brown  to  Watson  Brown,  North  Elba,  September  14,  1859. — Origi 
nal  in  Dreer  Collection. 

79.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

80.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author. 

81.  Quoted  by  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  the  author. 

82.  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Chambersburg,  October  I,  1859,  Sanborn, 
P-  550- 

83.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams  to  author. 

84.  'John  Brown  and  His  Friends,'  by  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Atlantic  Monthly,  July, 
1872. 

85.  Quoted  by  F.  B.  Sanborn  in  'The  Virginia  Campaign  of  John  Brown,' 
Atlantic  Monthly,  December,  1875. 

86.  Letter  of  Francis  J.  Meriam  to  Wendell  Phillips  Garrison,  Rutland,  Vt., 
September  22,  1858.  —  Original  in  possession  of  the  author. 

87.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Men  of  War  Times,  by  A.  K.  McClure,  Philadelphia, 
1892,  p.  309. 

88.  Confession  of  John  E.  Cook. 

89.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 


NOTES;  639 

90.  From  the  copy  by  John  Brown,  Jr.,  in  the  Higginson  Collection,  Boston 
Public  Library. 

91.  Ibid. 

92.  Statement  of  Salmon  Brown,  at  Portland,  Oregon,  October  12,  1908,  to 
K.  Mayo. 

CHAPTER  XII 
HIGH    TREASON    IN    VIRGINIA 

1.  For  an  account  of  the  last  day  at  Kennedy  Farm  and  the  march  to  Harper's 
Ferry,  see  O.  P.  Anderson,  A   Voice  from  Harper's  Ferry,  pp.  28-32;  the  story  of 
the  parting  of  the  Coppocs  is  from  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams's  recollections  of 
O.  P.  Anderson's  verbal  account;  see  also,  on  this  point,  John  Brown's  Men,  by 
Thomas  Featherstonhaugh,  Harrisburg,  1899,  p.  12. 

2.  N.  Y.  Herald,  November  I,  1859;  Doc.  No.  xxxi,  Report  of  the" Joint  Com 
mittee  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia  on  the  Harper's  Ferry  Outrages,  Jan 
uary  26,  1860,  p.  4. 

3.  Thomas  Jefferson,  Notes  on  the  State  of  Virginia,  London,  1787,  pp.  27-28. 

4.  New  York  Tribune,  November  24,  1856. 

5.  Josephus,  Jr.,  Annals  of  Harper's  Ferry,  Hagerstown,  Md.,  1869,  pp.  17-18; 
New  York  Herald,  October  19,  1859;  Life,  Trial  and  Conviction  of  Captain  John 
Brown,  New  York,  1859,  p.  76. 

6.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  November  24,  1856. 

7.  Testimony  of  Daniel  Whelan,  Mason  Report,  p.  22*- 

8.  O.  P.  Anderson,  A  Voice,  pp.  26  and  33. 

9.  For  Col.  Washington's  narrative  of  his  capture,  see  Mason  Report,  pp.  29— 
40,  and  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John  Brown,  pp.  39-40,  71  and  72; 
see  also  O.  P.  Anderson,  pp.  33-35. 

10.  O.  P.  Anderson,  p.  35. 

11.  Statement  of  John  Thomas  Allstadt,  Kearneysville,  W.  Va.,  April  15, 
1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

12.  Mason  Report,  p.  34. 

13.  Statement  of  Patrick  Higgins,  Sandy  Hook,  Md.,  January,  1908,  to  the  au 
thor;  Annals  of  Harper's  Ferry,  p.  18;  statement  of  W.  W.  Throckmorton,  N.  Y. 
Herald,  October  24,  1859;  testimony  of  Conductor  Phelps,  Life,  Trial  and  Con 
viction  of  Captain  John  Brown,  p.  69.    (The  Life,  Trial  and  Conviction  of  Captain 
John  Brown  differs  but  slightly  from  the  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John 
Brown.  Both  were  pamphlets  of  108  pages,  published  by  Robert  W.  DeWitt,  New 
York,  1859.) 

14.  For  the  story  of  the  stopping  of  the  train  and  of  the  shooting  of  Hayward, 
see  Phelps's  testimony;  see  also  statements  of  C.  W.  Armstrong,  a  passenger, 
N.  Y.  Herald,  October  19,  and  of  W.  W.  Throckmorton,  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  24; 
also  testimony  of  Dr.  J.  D.  Starry,  Mason  Report,  pp.  23-24;  for  Hay  ward's  char 
acter,  see  Starry's  testimony;  also  that  of  Col.  Washington,  Mason  Report,  p.  39. 
Hayward's  body  was  escorted  to  the  grave  by  the  Morgan  Continentals,  under 
Major  R.  B.  Washington,  with  two  other  militia  companies.    A  militia  band  led 
the  procession,  in  which  were  the  mayor  and  many  officers  and  white  citizens,  who 
listened  reverently  to  the  reading  of  the  burial  service  by  an  old  negro  preacher. 

15.  Confession  of  John  E.  Cook,  p.  II. 

1 6.  Phelps  testimony,  Life,  Trial  and  Conviction  of  Captain  John  Brown,  p.  69. 

17.  For  the  despatch  and  its  sequels,  see  Document  Y,  Correspondence  Relating 


640  NOTES 

to  the  Insurrection  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Annapolis,  1860,  p.  i  et  seq.  (published  by 
the  Maryland  Legislature),  hereinafter  referred  to  as  Document  Y. 

18.  Dr.  Starry's  testimony  in  full  is  given  in  the  Mason  Report. 

19.  Report  of  Col.  John  Thomas  Gibson,  commanding  the  55th  Regiment 
Virginia  Militia,  Harper's  Ferry,  October  18,  1859,  to  Governor  Wise,  Document 
No.  I,  Virginia  State  Papers,  pp.  61-62;  speech  of  Governor  Wise  in  Richmond, 
October  21,  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  26,  1859;   also  statement    of    Mr.   Cleon 
Moore  to  the  author,  January,  1908. 

20.  Report  of  Col.  Gibson;  article  entitled  'The  Jefferson  Guards,'  Virginia 
Free  Press,  October  27,  1859. 

21.  Statement  of  W.  W.  Throckmorton,  clerk  of  the  Wager  House,  N.  Y. 
Herald,  October  24,  1859;  testimony  of  Col.  Washington,  Mason  Report,  p.  40; 
statements  of  J.  T.  Allstadt,  Kearneysville,  April  15,  1909,  and  of  Miss  Annie 
Miller,  Charlestown,  March  20,  1908,  both  to  K.  Mayo. 

22.  Testimony  of  Terence  Byrne,  Mason  Report,  pp.  13-21;  Confession  of 
John  E.  Cook. 

23.  See  testimony  of  Armistead  Ball,  Life,  Trial  and  Conviction  of  Captain  John 
Brown,  p.  73;  testimony  of  Joseph  A.  Brewer  [Brua],  ibid.,  p.  75;  testimony  of 
Reason  Cross,  ibid.,  p.  76;  testimony  of  John  P.  Da[i]ngerfield,  ibid.,  p.  79. 

24.  Charlestown    Virginia   Free  Press,  October  27  and   November  3,  1859; 
testimony  of  Benjamin  T.  Bell,  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John  Brown, 
p.  74. 

25.  Col.  Gibson's  Report;  Col.  Baylor's  Report,  Document  No.  I,  pp.  63-64; 
'The  Jefferson  Guards,'  Virginia  Free  Press,  October  27,  1859. 

26.  Statement  of  Col.  Richard  B.  Washington,  Charlestown,  March  26,  1908, 
to  K.  Mayo;  Annals  of  Harper's  Ferry,  p.  34;  statement  of  Patrick  Higgins  to  the 
author.    The  shooting  of  Newby  has  been  ascribed  to  other  hands,  though  all 
narratives  agree  as  to  the  place  whence  the  shot  came. 

27.  Statement  of  Patrick  Higgins  to  the  author,  January,  1908;  this  incident 
was  reported  in  the  Frederick,  Md.,  Herald,  cited  in  the  Liberator,  November  u, 
1859;  see  also  Richmond  Despatch,  October  25,  1859. 

28.  Cross's  testimony,  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John  Brown,  p.  76. 

29.  For  the  mission  and  the  wounding  of  Stevens  and  of  Watson  Brown,  see 
testimony  of  A.  M.  Kitzmiller,  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John  Brown, 
p.  75;  testimony  of  James  Beller,  ibid.,  p.  75;  of  John  P.  Daingerfield,  ibid.,  p.  79; 
and  of  Major  Mills,  ibid.,  p.  80;  also  letter  of  George  Sennott,  Stevens's  counsel, 
in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  November  29,  1859. 

30.  Testimony  of  Joseph  A.  Brewer  [Brua],  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Cap 
tain  John  Brown,  p.  75. 

31.  Schoppert's  affidavit  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Braxton  Davenport  Gibson, 
of  Charlestown,  who  vouches  for  his  father's,  Colonel  Gibson's,  endorsement  of 
Schoppert's  statement;  for  the  riddling  of  Leeman's  body,  see  Baltimore  Sun, 
October  19,  1859;  also  statement  of  Mr.  E.  B.  Chambers,  Harper's  Ferry,  March 
24, 1908,  to  K.  Mayo;  also  statement  of  eye-witness  in  the  Frederick,  Md.,  Herald, 
quoted  in  the  Liberator  of  Nov.  n,  1859;  for  Leeman's  attempt  to  escape,  and  his 
movements  precedent  thereto,  see  Annals  of  Harper's  Ferry,  by  Joseph  Barry  (a 
later  edition),  Martinsburg,  W.  Va.,  1872. 

32.  Statement  of  John  Brown,  Charlestown  Independent  Democrat,  November 
22,  1859;  letter  of  'An  Observer,'  Shepherdstown,  Va.,  Register,  October  29, 
1859;  statement  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alfred  Burton,  Charlestown,  April  14,  1909,  to 
K.  Mayo. 

33.  George  W.  Turner  was  graduated  from  West  Point,  July  I,  1831,  becoming 


NOTES  641 

a  second  lieutenant  in  the  1st  Artillery.  He  resigned  June  30,  1836,  and  became  a 
farmer  in  Rippon,  Jefferson  County.  His  sister  lost  her  reason  on  hearing  of  her 
brother's  death,  and  died  soon  after  of  shock  and  grief. 

34.  J.  G.  Rosengarten,  'John  Brown's  Raid,'  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1865. 

35.  Statement  of  John  Thomas  Allstadt,  April  15,  1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

36.  Letter  of  Miss  Christine  Fouke,  Harper's  Ferry,  November  27,  1859,  to  the 
St.  Louis  Republican  of  December  2,  1859. 

37.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  October  29,  1859;  for  a  more  detailed  report  of  Mr.  Hunter's 
testimony,  see  N.  Y. Herald,  October 31, 1859;  Virginia  FreePress,  October 27, 1859- 

38.  Annals  of  Harper's  Ferry,  p.  25;  see  also  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  19,  1859. 

39.  John  E.  P.  Daingerfield,  'John  Brown  at^Harper's  Ferry,'  Century,  June, 
1885,  p.  267. 

40.  Statement  of^Capt.  Ephraim  G.  Alburtis,  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  24,  1859; 
telegram  of  W.  P.  Smith  to  L.  M.  Cole,  Harper's  Ferry,  October  18,  Docu 
ment  Y,  p.  17;  telegram  of  same  to  J.  W.  Garrett,  Monocacy,  October  18,  ibid., 
p.  23;  Alexander  R.  Boteler,  'Recollections  of  the  John  Brown  Raid,'  Century, 
July,  1883,  p.  407;  report  of  Col.  Baylor;  Baltimore  Despatch  of  October  18, 
quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  October  19,  1859. 

41.  Statement  of  W.  S.  Downer,  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  24,  1859. 

42.  Report  of  Col.  Robert  E.  Lee,  as  printed  in  Mason  Report,  p.  40;  Reports 
of  Cols.  Gibson  and  Baylor. 

43.  For  the  story  of  the  fight  at  the  Rifle  Works,  see  Mason  Report,  p.  27;  Mr. 
Boteler's  narrative  in  his  Century  article  above  cited;  Copeland's  account  of  the 
whole  affair  is  given  in  his  letter  of  December  10,  1859,  to  Addison  W.  Halbert, 
—  original  in  Department  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond,  Virginia;  N.  Y. 
Tribune,  October  19,  1859;  narrative  of  D.  H.  Strother,  Harper's  Weekly,  Novem 
ber  5,  1859. 

44.  Testimony  of  Lind  F.  Currie,  Mason  Report,  pp.  54-59;  Confession  of  John 
E.  Cook.    Cf.  'Owen  Brown's  Escape  from  Harper's  Ferry,'  by  Ralph  Keeler, 
Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1874. 

45.  Boteler's  narrative;  affidavit  of  G.  A.  Schoppert. 

46.  For  John  Brown's  proposal  and  Col.  Baylor's  reply,  see  the  official  report 
of  the  latter. 

47.  Capt.  Sinn's  narrative  is  found  in  his  testimony  at  Brown's  trial,  for  the 
"manly  and  truthful"  character  of  whichfjohn  Brown  afterward  thanked  him. 
See  N.  Y.  Tribune,  October  31,  1859. 

48.  Statement  of  Col.  Washington,  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John 
Brown,  p.  40. 

49.  Statement  of  John  Thomas  Allstadt,  April  15,  1909.   Testimonies  conflict 
as  to  the  hour  of  Oliver  Brown's  death,  some  averring  that  he  died  within  fifteen 
minutes  after  sustaining  his  mortal  wound. 

50.  John  E.  P.  Daingerfield,  Century,  June,  1885 ;  statement  of  John  Brown,  N.  Y. 
Herald,  October  22,  1859;  letter  of  Edwin  Coppoc,  November  22,  1859,  quoted 
by  Hinton,  p.  488;  letter  of  John  Brown  to  wife  and  children,  Charlestown,  3ist 
Oct.  1859, —  original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

51.  Document  Y,  p.  10. 

52.  Ibid.,  p.  14. 

53.  Gen.  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  as  quoted  by  John  Esten  Cook  in  the  St.  Joseph,  Mo., 
Herald,  September  2,  1879;  Col.  Lee's  official  report  to  the  Adjutant-General, 
Mason  Report,  p.  41. 

54.  Given  in  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Edward  Lee,  Soldier  and  Man,  by  the  Rev. 
J.  William  Jones,  New  York,  1906,  p.  105. 


642  NOTES 

55.  From  Stuart's  letter  to  his  mother,  Fort  Riley,  January,  1860,  given  in 
Life  and  Campaigns  of  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  by  H.  B.  McClellan,  Boston,  1885,  pp.  28- 

30. 

56.  Col.  Lee's  Report. 

57.  See  speech  of  Gov.  Wise,  Richmond,  October  21,  1859. 

58.  Statement  of  Col.  and  Mrs.  John  A.  Tompkins,  Baltimore,  Feb.  24,  1908, 
to  K.  Mayo.  Mrs.  Tompkins  is  a  daughter  of  Col.  Shriver. 

59.  Letter  of  O.  Jennings  Wise  to  Col.  J.  T.  Gibson,  Richmond,  June  5, 
1860.  — Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Braxton  Davenport  Gibson,  Charlestown, 
W.  Va. 

60.  Affidavit  of  G.  A.  Schoppert. 

61.  Israel  Green  entered  the  Marine  Corps  of  the  United  States  Navy  with  the 
rank  of  second  lieutenant  on  March  3,  1847,  and  was  dismissed  May  18,  1861,  be 
cause  he  resigned  to  go  South.  Although  a  Vermonter,  he  joined  the  Confederate 
Marine  Corps  with  the  rank  of  major  and  adjutant,  on  its  organization,  March 
16,  1861,  serving  throughout  the  war  in  that  position.  He  died  in  Mitchell,  South 
Dakota,  on  May  26,  1909,  in  his  86th  year. 

62.  "  Major  Russell  had  been  requested  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  accom 
pany  the  marines,  but,  being  a  paymaster,  could  exercise  no  command;  yet  it 
was  his  corps."  —  Letter  of  Lieut.  J.  E.  B.  Stuart  to  his  mother,  Fort  Riley,  Jan. 
i860. 

"Major  Russell  was  a  charming  and  cultivated  man  of  great  coolness,  and  then 
about  thirty-five  years  old.  He  jumped  through  the  door  with  Green,  unarmed, 
carrying  in  his  hand  only  a  little  rattan  switch."  —  Statement  of  Col.  John  A. 
Tompkins,  Baltimore,  Feb.  24,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

"Major  Russell,  of  marines,  headed  them  in  person,  unarmed.  I  never  saw  so 
thrilling  a  scene."  —  W.  P.  Smith  (Master  of  Transportation,  B.  and  O.  Railroad) 
to  J.  W.  Garrett,  Harper's  Ferry,  Oct.  18,  1859,  Document  Y,  p.  21. 

Major  W.  W.  Russell  became  second  lieutenant  of  Marines,  April  5,  1843, 
first  lieutenant,  Nov.  18,  1847,  and  later  paymaster  with  rank  of  major.  He  died 
Oct.  31,  1862. 

63.  Quoted  by  Governor  Wise  in  his  speech  at  Richmond,  October  21,  1859. 

64.  'The  Capture  of  John  Brown,' by  Israel  Green,  North  American  Review, 
Dec.  1885,  pp.  564-569. 

65.  Ibid.,  p.  566;  John  E.  P.  Daingerfield,  in  the  Century,  June,  1885;  'John 
Brown's  Raid,'  narrative  of  master  armorer  Ben.  Mills,  Louisville  Courier-Journal, 
July  9,  1881;  statement  of  John  Thomas  Allstadt. 

66.  Colonel  Lee's  Report;  Col.  Lee's  despatch  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  Docu 
ment  Y,  p.  22;  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  21,  1859. 

67.  Letter  of  C.  W.  Tayleure  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  June  15,  1879,  a  copy  of 
which  is  in  the  Maryland  Historical  Society's  Library. 

68.  Governor  Wise,  speech  of  October  21,  1859. 

69.  Baltimore  American,  quoted  in  N.  Y.  Tribune,  October  22,  1859. 

70.  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  21,  1859. 

71.  N.  Y.  Herald,  November  i,  1859. 

72.  The  Court  of  Enquiry  met  June  4,  at  Charlestown.  See  entry  of  June  28, 
i860,  Executive  Journal,  Library  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth,  Rich 
mond.  The  Court  remained  in  session  six  days.  See  also  Charlestown  Independent 
Democrat,  June  19,  1860;  the  Virginia  Free  Press,  June  21,  1860,  gives  a  full 
account  of  the  proceedings. 

73.  O.  Jennings  Wise  to  Col.  J.  T.  Gibson,  Richmond,  June  5,  1860. — Original 
in  possession  of  Mr.  Braxton  Davenport  Gibson. 


NOTES  643 

74.  Shepherdstown,  Va.,  Register,  October  29,  1859. 

75.  Message  of  Gov.  Wise  to  the  Virginia  Legislature,  December  5,  1859, Docu 
ment  No.  i,  December,  1859,  Journal  of  the  House  of  Delegates. 

76.  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise,  by  Barton  H.  Wise,  New  York,  1899,  pp.  274-277. 

77.  Ibid.,  p.  278. 

78.  Ibid.,  p.  283. 

CHAPTER  XIII 
GUILTY  BEFORE  THE   LAW 

1.  For  the  movements  of  the  troops  on  the  i8th,  see  Col.  Lee's  official  report  of 
October  19;  Lieutenant  Stuart's  letter  to  his  mother,  Fort  Riley,  Jan.  1860;  Col. 
R.  W.  Baylor's  official  report,  Herald,  Oct.  19, 1859;  testimony  of  John  C.  Unseld, 
Mason  Report,  pp.  7-12. 

2.  Gov.  Wise  to  J.  W.  Garrett,  Washington,  2Oth  Oct.,  Document  Y,  pp.  28-29; 
W.  P.  Smith  to  J.  T.  Crow,  Baltimore,  Oct.  25,  ibid.,  p.  31;  W.  P.  Smith  to  A. 
Hunter,  Baltimore,  October  25,  ibid.,  pp.  31-32;  W.  P.  Smith  to  Gov.  Wise,  Balti 
more,  Oct.  25,  ibid.,  pp.  32-33;  testimony  of  Andrew  Hunter,  Mason  Report,  p.  65. 

3.  Richmond  Despatch,  Nov.  27,  1859. 

4.  Confession  of  John  E.  Cook;  'Owen  Brown's  Escape  from  Harper's  Ferry,' 
by  Ralph  Keeler;  Notes  of  conversation  with  C.  P.  Tidd,  by  T.  W.  Higginson, 
Feb.  10,  1860,  —  original  in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library. 

5.  Notes  of  conversation  with  C.  P.  Tidd,  by  T.  W.  Higginson,  Feb.  10,  1860; 
testimony  of  Colonel  Washington,  Mason  Report,  p.  39;  see  also  testimony  of 
John  P.  Da[i]ngerfield,  Life,  Trial  and  Conviction,  p.  79,  and  testimony  of  John 
H.  Allstadt,  ibid.,  pp.  73-74. 

6.  Testimony  of  Colonel  Washington,  Mason  Report,  pp.  39-40;  speech  of 
Gov.  Wise  of  Oct.  19,  1859. 

7.  Testimony  of  John  H.  Allstadt,  Mason  Report,  pp.  42-44;  Virginia  Free 
Press,  Nov.  3,  1859. 

8.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  26,  1859. 

9.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  19,  1859.  The  man  belonged  to  Mr.  Allstadt,  —  state 
ment  of  John  Thomas  Allstadt  of  April  15,  1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

10.  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1865. 

11.  Official  Report  of  Colonel  Lee;  N.  Y.  Tribune,  October  20;  N.  Y.  Herald, 
October  21,  1859. 

12.  Speech  of  Gov.  Wise  of  October  19,  1859;  Andrew  Hunter,  in  New  Orleans 
Times-Democrat,  Sept.  5,  1887;  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  20,  1859;  Redpath,  pp.  286- 
287. 

13.  Official  report  of  Col.  Baylor. 

14.  Official  reports  of  Col.  Lee  and  of  Col.  Baylor;  letter  of  Lieut.  J.  E.  B. 
Stuart  to  his  mother,  Fort  Riley,  Jan.  1860. 

15.  The  adventures  of  the  five  refugees  will  be  found  in  'Owen  Brown's  Escape 
from  Harper's  Ferry,'  by  Ralph  Keeler;  Confession  of  John  E.  Cook;  Notes  of 
conversation  with  C.  P.  Tidd,  by  T.  W.  Higginson,  Feb.  10,  1860,  in  Higginson 
Collection;  O.  P.  Anderson,  A  Voice  from  Harper's  Ferry.  Important  letters  re 
lating  to  the  escape  of  the  survivors,  and  the  efforts  set  on  foot  by  J.  Miller  Me- 
Kim,  William  W.  Rutherford,  of  Harrisburg,  Redpath  and  others,  to  aid  their 
flight,  are  to  be  found  in  the  J.  M.  McKim  Correspondence,  Cornell  University 
Library. 

16.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  20,  1859. 


644  NOTES 

17.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  19,  1859- 

18.  Cleveland  Weekly  Leader,  Oct.  26,  1859. 

19.  Oct.  20,  1859. 

20.  Oct.  22,  1859. 

21.  Oct.  22,   1859. 

22.  Oct.  22,  1859. 

23.  Liberator,  October  21,  1859. 

24.  Cited  in  the  N.  Y.  Anzeiger  des  Westens,  Oct.  23,  1859. 

25.  Maryland.   The  History  of  a  Palatinate,  by  William  Hand  Browne,  Boston, 
1904,  pp.  349-35I- 

26.  Greeley  to  Schuyler  Colfax,  Life  of  Schuyler  Coif  ax,  by  O.  J.  Hollister,  New 
York,  1886,  p.  150. 

27.  Chapter  CCVIII  SS2  of  Code  of  Virginia,  published  in  1849  pursuant  to 
an  Act  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  passed  August  15,  1847. 

28.  See  Message  of  Governor  Wise  to  the  House  of  Delegates,  Dec.  1859,  Doc 
ument  No.  i.   Caleb  Gushing,  speaking  in  the  Union  Meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
Boston,  Dec.  8,  1859,  mentioned  a  decision  once  handed  down  by  himself  that  the 
arsenal  of  Harper's  Ferry  was  in  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States; 
but,  continuing,  he  showed  that  John  Brown,  besides  those  offences  done  within  the 
armory  grounds,  committed  in  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  Commonwealth 
of  Virginia,  burglary,  robbery,  incitement  to  sedition,  treason  and  murder.   Re 
ported  in  the  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  9,  1859. 

29.  Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 

30.  Letter  of  Andrew  Hunter  to  Governor  Wise,  Charlestown,  Nov.  2,  1859, 
—  Original  in  Department  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond. 

31.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  10,  1859. 

32.  Quoted  by  Andrew  Hunter  in  a  letter  to  Governor  Wise,  Winchester,  Dec. 
15,  1859.  —  Original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 

33.  Original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 

34.  Correspondence  from  Richmond  of  Dec.  8,  in  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  II, 
1859. 

35.  Richmond  Enquirer,  Feb.  7,  1860. 

36.  Judge  Richard  Parker  died  in  Winchester,  Va.,  Nov.  10, 1893,  in  his  eighty- 
fourth  year.    He  was  a  son  of  Judge  Richard  E.  Parker,  of  the  Virginia  Court 
of  Appeals,  and  graduated  in  law  at  the  University  of  Virginia.  In  1849  he  was 
Representative  in  the  34th  Congress,  and  in  1851  became  Circuit  Court  Judge. 
During  the  "reconstruction,"  he  was  forced  to  retire  from  the  bench  by  the  mili 
tary  authorities,  and  then  opened  a  law  school  in  Winchester.    Until  a  few  years 
before  his  death  he  was  in  active  practice,  and  was  always  one  of  the  leading 
lawyers  of  the  State. 

37.  Lydia  Maria  Child  to  Governor  Wise,  Wayland,  Oct.  26,  1859,  in  Corre 
spondence  between  Lydia  Maria  Child,  Gov.  Wise  and  Mrs.  Mason  of  Virginia, 
New  York,  1860  (pamphlet),  pp.  1-2;  Letters  of  Lydia  Maria  Child,  Boston, 
1883,  p.  104. 

38.  Ibid.,  pp.  4-6;  ibid.,  p.  106. 

39.  Nov.  17,  1859. 

40.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Oct.  31,  1859. 

41.  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  Nov.  4,  1859. 

m.  42.  Letter  of  Gov.  Wise  to  the  Philadelphia  Press,  quoted  in  the  Liberator, 
Sept.  26,  1856. 

43.  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat,  April  8,  1888. 

44.  Mason  Report,  p.  187. 


NOTES  645 

45.  Life,  Trial  and  Conviction,  p.  95;  see  also  letter  of  Judge  Russell  signed 
14T.,M  Boston  Traveller,  Nov.  5,  1859. 

46.  D.  W.  Voorhees,  United  States  Senate,  Jan.  7,  1889,  to  Miss  Florence 
Hunter.  — Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Hunter,  Charlestown,  W.  Va. 

47.  The  entire  proceedings  of  the  Court  of  Examination  and  of  the  Circuit 
Court  in  the  trial  of  Brown,  with  testimony,  speeches  and  rulings,  are  best  re 
ported  in  the  New  York  Herald.  The  story  of  the  trial  here  given  has  been  drawn 
from  the  pamphlet  Life,  Trial  and  Execution  of  Captain  John  Brown,  New  York, 
1859,  and  from  a  careful  comparison  of  the  accounts  of  the  Tribune,  Herald,  Lib 
erator  and  other  contemporary  papers,  Northern  and  Southern,  after  an  exami 
nation  of   the  official  minutes   of   the  trial,  at    Charlestown.     Gen.  Marcus  J. 
Wright's  two  magazine  articles,  The  Trial  of  John  Brown,  its  Impartiality  and 
Decorum  Vindicated,  Southern  Historical  Society  Papers,  vol.  16,  357-366,  and 
The  Trial  and  Execution  of  John  Brown,  American  Historical  Association  Papers, 
vol.  4,  pp.  437-452,  have  also  been  examined. 

48.  Charles  James  Faulkner  to  M.  W.  Cluskey,  Boydville,  Nov.  5,  1859,  quoted 
from  Washington  States  and  Union,  by  Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  25,  1859. 

49.  Lawson  Botts  was  a  son  of  Gen.  Thomas  H.  Botts,  of  Virginia,  grandson 
of  Benjamin  Botts,  counsel  for  Aaron  Burr,  and  was,  on  his  mother's  side,  of  the 
family  of  General  Washington.    In  the  Confederate  army  he  was  quickly  pro 
moted  for  distinguished  gallantry,  and  held  the  rank  of  Colonel  of  the  Second 
Virginia  Regiment,  when  mortally  wounded  on  the  field,  Aug.  28,  1862.  Thomas 
C.  Green  served  as  a  private  in  his  friend's  command.  After  the  war  he  returned 
to  his  profession,  was  appointed  to  the  bench  in  1875,  and  served  as  judge  in  the 
West  Virginia  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals  until  1889,  in  which  year  he  died. 

50.  For  the  above  quotation  and  account  of  the  despatch  of  Hoyt  to  Charles- 
town,  see  Hinton's  John  Brown  and  His  Men,  pp.  365-366. 

51.  Andrew  Hunter  to  Governor  Wise,  Calendar  of  Virginia  State  Papers,  vol. 
II,  p.  87. 

52.  Hinton,  p.  366. 

53.  Letter  of  Andrew  Hunter  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Charlestown,  Nov.  8,  1859.  — 
Original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham.  A  man  of  fine  natural  parts  and 
of  a  classical  training,  Charles  Harding  was  now  a  physical  wreck.   At  the  out 
break  of  the  war,  however,  he  shouldered  a  musket  and,  despite  his  years,  went 
into  the  Confederate  ranks,  serving  with  devotion.    Left  unrelieved  on  outpost 
guard  all  one  stormy  winter  night,  by  oversight,  he  died  the  next  day  from 
pneumonia. 

54.  Statement  of  Mr.  Cleon  Moore,  Charlestown,  April  15,  1909,  to  K.  Mayo. 

55.  Letter  of  D.  W.  Voorhees  to  Miss  Florence  Hunter,  Jan.  7,  1889.  Andrew 
Hunter  was  born  in  Berkeley  County,  Virginia,  March  22,  1804,  graduated  at 
Hampden-Sidney  College  in  1822,  and  soon  began  the  practice  of  law  in  Harper's 
Ferry,  removing  to  Charlestown  in  1825.  He  served  in  the  Legislature  of  Virginia 
before  and  during  the  Civil  War.  His  Charlestown  home  was  destroyed  by  his 
cousin,  Gen.  David  Hunter,  of  the  Union  Army,  in  1864.  He  died  in  Charlestown, 
November,  22,  1888. 

56.  Andrew  Hunter  to  Gov.  Wise,  Charlestown,  Oct.  22.  —  Original  in  Execu 
tive  Papers,  Department  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond,  Va. 

57.  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  28,  1859. 

58.  Order  Book  No.  12,  p.  428,  Court  Records  of  Jefferson  County,  Charles- 
town,  W.  Va. 

59.  N.  Y.  Herald,  October  26,  1859. 

60.  Ibid. 


646  NOTES 

61.  For  the  arrest  of  Cook,  see  circumstantial  letters  dated  Chambersburg,  Pa., 
Oct.  26  and  Oct.  29,  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Oct.  29  and  Nov.  4,  1859. 

62.  Life,  Trial  and  Execution,  pp.  59-61 ;  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  30,  1859. 

63.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Oct.  28,  1859. 

64.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  27,  1859. 

65.  Common  Law  Orders  No.  6,  p.  281,  Court  Records  of  Jefferson  County. 

66.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  28,  1859;  Life,  Trial  and  Execution,  p.  68. 

67.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  5,  1859. 

68.  Common  Law  Orders  No.  6,  p.  283,  Court  Records  of  Jefferson  County. 

69.  Redpath's  John  Brown,  p.  325. 

70.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  29,  1859. 

71.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Nov.  i,  1859;  see  also  Richmond  Despatch,  Nov.  i,  1859. 

72.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Oct.  29,  1859. 

73.  Letter  of  Wendell  Phillips  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Oct.  26,  1859,  —  original 
in  Higginson  Collection;  of  George  Sennott   to  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  Boston,  Dec. 
31,    1859,  —  original  in  possession  of  Dr.  Thaddeus  Hyatt,   Brooklyn,  N.  Y.; 
testimony  of  John  A.  Andrew  and  of  Samuel  Chilton,  Mason  Report,  pp.  186- 
1 88  and  137-140;  Washington  Star,  Nov.  2,  1859.   On  Nov.  2,  Samuel  E.  Sewall, 
Dr.  Howe,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  and  T.  W.  Higginson  sent  out  a  printed  circular 
appealing  for  contributions  for  the  defence  of  Brown  and  his  companions,  and 
offering  to  act  as  a  committee  to  receive  and  apply  them.    Originals  of  the  circu 
lar  are  preserved  in  the  McKim  and  the  Higginson  Collections. 

74.  Brown's  letters  to  Judges  Tilden  and  Russell  were  identical.  The  first  will 
be  found  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Oct.  29.  The  original  of  the  second  is  in  the  Kansas 
Historical  Society.   Judge  Tilden's  reply,  dated  Cleveland,  Oct.  27,  stating  that 
he  was  himself  unable  to  serve,  but  that  he  was  sending  Messrs.  Griswold  and 
[Albert  Gallatin]  Riddle,  is  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Brown.   Mr.  Riddle  decided, 
however,  because  of  reluctance  to  appear  with  Griswold,  not  to  undertake  the 
case.  For  this  in  after  years  he  expressed  lasting  regret.  See  Personal  Recollections 
of  War  Times,  by  Albert  Gallatin  Riddle,  New  York,  1895,  p.  3. 

75.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Nov.  21,  1859.  William  Green,  of  Richmond,  a  distinguished 
member  of  the  Virginia  bar,  was  employed  to  assist  Mr.  Chilton  in  presenting 
Brown's  case  to  the  Court  of  Appeals.  Mr.  Green's  copy  of  the  brief  to  the  Court 
of  Appeals,  with  his  manuscript  summary,  in  his  own  hand,  of  the  finding  of  the 
full  bench,  is  in  possession  of  Miss  Sarah  Brown. 

76.  Letter  of  Andrew  Hunter,  Charlestown,  Oct.  25,  1859,  to  Gov.  Wise, 
Calendar  of  Virginia  State  Papers,  vol.  II,  p.  87. 

77.  'John  Brown's  Raid,'  by  Andrew  Hunter,  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat, 
Sept.  5,  1887. 

78.  Letter  of  George  H.  Hoyt,  Charlestown,  Oct.  30,  1859,  to  J.  W.  Le  Barnes. 
—  Original  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

79.  Letter  of  John  Brown  to  his  brother  Jeremiah,  Charlestown,  Nov.  12, 1859, 
The  John  Brown  Invasion,  Boston,  1860,  p.  49. 

80.  In  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat,  April  8,  1888. 

81.  "His  brief  speech  at  Gettysburg  will  not  easily  be  surpassed  by  words  on 
any  recorded  occasion.  This  and  one  other  American  speech,  that  of  John  Brown 
to  the  court  that  tried  him,  and  a  part  of  Kossuth's  speech  at  Birmingham,  can 
only  be  compared  with  each  other,  and  with  no  fourth,"  —  said  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  at  the  funeral  services  for  Abraham  Lincoln,  held  in  Concord,  April  19, 
1865. 

"  I  'm  so  sorry  not  to  exult  with  you  with  joy  unutterable  over  Brown's  perfect 
words.  Has  anything  like  it  been  said  in  this  land  or  age,  so  brave,  wise,  considerate 


NOTES  647 

all  round.  Slavery  &  Freedom  brought  face  to  face  standing  opposite;  the  one  all 
one  black  wrong,  the  other  white  as  an  angel,"  wrote  W.  H.  Furness  to  J.  M. 
McKim,  Nov.  3,  1859.  —  Original  in  J.  M.  McKim  Papers,  Cornell  University 
Library. 

82.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Nov.  3,  1859. 

83.  Judge  Parker  in  the  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat,  April  8,  1888.   "Sentence 
was  pronounced  and  was  received  in  perfect  silence,  except  a  slight  demonstra 
tion  of  applause  from  one  excited  man,  whom  the  Judge  instantly  ordered  into 
custody.    It  illustrates  the  character  fof  the  people,  that  several  officials  and 
members  of  the  bar  hastened  to  inform  us  that  this  man  was  not  a  citizen  of  the 
county."  —  Letter  of  Judge  Thomas  Russell,  from  Charlestown,  in  Boston  Trav 
eller,  Nov.  5,  1859. 

84.  Doc.  No.  xxxi,  of  the  Virginia  General  Assembly ,rjanuary  26,  1860. 

85.  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  Nov.  n,  1859. 

86.  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  Nov.  18,  1859. 

87.  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  Nov.  4,  1859. 
:  88.  Liberator,  Oct.  28,  1859. 

89.  Berry ville,  Va.,  Clarke  Journal,  Nov.  II,  1859. 

90.  Quoted  in  the  National  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  Nov.  26,  1859. 

91.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

92.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

93.  Original  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  Among  those  who  wrote 
to  Gov.  Wise  in  behalf  of  clemency  was  a  certain  Ellwood  Fisher,  who  feared  that  if 
the  "obscure  whites  and  negroes"  in  captivity  after  Brown's  death  were  hanged, 
it  would  be  a  waiver  by  Virginia  of  her  "imputations"  against  the  real  offenders, 
the  anti-slavery  and  Black  Republican  party  of  the  North.  —  Richmond,  Dec.  14, 
1859.  —  Original  in  Department  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond. 

94.  Document  No.  I,  Dec.  1859,  Journal  of  the  House  of  Delegates. 

95.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  28,  1859;  Life,  Trial  and  Execution,  p.  64. 

96.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  28,  1859. 

97.  Original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 

98.  See  the  Governor's  autograph  endorsement  on  the  above. 

99.  Original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 

100.  "  Blair  thinks  a  demonstration  of  Brown's  insanity  might  please  Wise.   He 
says  he  has  seen  something  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer  —  probably  the  st.  [state 
ment]  he  exhibited  to  Andrew  —  which  looks  like  an  invitation."   Hoyt  to  Le 
Barnes,  Washington,  Nov.  14,  1859.  —  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 
"Mr.  Hoyt  ...  is  now  in  the  city  for  the  purpose  of  getting  affidavits  of  the 
acquaintances  of  Brown  as  to  his  sanity.  A  large  number  of  affidavits  have  been 
prepared  at  Akron,  Hudson,  Cleveland,  etc.,  and  they  are  made  by  men  of  the 
first  respectability,  who  have  known  Brown  for  many  years  intimately;  there  is 
no  difference  of  opinion  among  them  as  to  the  monomania  of  Brown  upon  the 
subject  of  slavery."  Clevelandj(Daily)  Leader,  Nov.  18,  1859.  The  originals  of  all 
the  affidavits  are  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham.   Hoyt  submitted  the 
affidavits,  accompanied  by  a  letter  to  Gov.  Wise  written  in  Chilton's  name.  For 
this  letter,  see  Liberator,  Dec.  2,  1859;  for  a  letter  by  Chilton,  denying  any  hand 
in  the  matter  and  stating  his  position  concerning  it,  see  National  Intelligencer, 
Dec.  13,  1859. 

.    101.  New  York  Semi-Weekly  Tribune,  May  27,  1884. 


648  NOTES 


CHAPTER  XIV 
BY  MAN   SHALL  HIS  BLOOD  BE    SHED 

1.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  pp.  147-159. 

2.  Letter  of  J.  W.  Le  Barnes  to  R.  J.  Hinton.    See  Hinton's  John  Brown  and 
His  Men,  p.  366.   Hoyt's  original  sketch  of  the  jail,  showing  arrangement  of  cells 
and  stations  of  guards,  as  drawn  for  and  remitted  to  the  New  England  confeder 
ates,  is  now  in  the  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

3.  S.  C.  Pomeroy  in  the  Christian  Cynosure,  March  31,  1887. 

4.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Russell,  Jamaica  Plain,  Mass.,  Jan.  n,  1908,  to  K. 
Mayo. 

5.  Letter  of  T.  W.  Higginson,  Worcester,  Nov.  4,  1859,  to  the  family  of  John 
Brown  at  North  Elba.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

6.  Ibid. 

7.  Original  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  see  also  letter  of 
George H.  Hoy t,  undated,  to  "Mr.Tomlinson." — Original  in  J.M.  McKim  Papers, 
Cornell  University  Library. 

8.  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  pp.  226-228. 

9.  J.  M.  McKim,  Philadelphia,  Nov.  8,  1859,  to  T.  W.  Higginson.  —  Original 
in  Higginson  Collection,  Boston  Public  Library.  J.  M.  McKim's  correspondence 
relating  to  Mrs.  Brown's  movements  during  the  month  of  November  is  preserved 
in  the  Cornell  University  Library;  see  also  Life  and  Letters  of  Peter  and  Susan 
Lesley,  edited  by  Mary  Lesley  Ames,  New  York,  1909,  pp.  377-380. 

10.  Telegram  of  George  Sennott,  received  in  Worcester,  Nov.  5,  to  T.  W.  Hig 
ginson.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

11.  J.  M.  McKim  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Nov.  8,  1859,  —  original  in  Higginson 
Collection;  see  also  letter  of  T.  W.  Higginson  to  J.  M.  McKim,  Worcester,  Nov.  5, 
J859 ,  —  original  in  Cornell  University  Library. 

12.  Copied  in  letter  of  S.  G.  Howe  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Nov.  9,  1859,  —  ori 
ginal  in  Higginson  Collection;  letter  of  T.  W.  Higginson  to  J.  M.  McKim,  Worces 
ter,  Nov.  10,  1859, — original  in  Cornell  University  Library. 

13.  Life  of  G.  L.  Stearns,  by  F.  P.  Stearns,  p.  187. 

14.  Reminiscences  of  James  Han  way,  Topeka  Commonwealth,  Jan,  31,  1878. 
This  is  erroneous  as  to  dates,  but  is  otherwise  vouched  for  by  R.  J.  Hinton, 
who  engineered  the  Kansas  effort  to  rescue  Stevens  and  Hazlett.    S.  C.  Adair, 
nephew  of  John  Brown,  confirms  the  story  concerning  Mary  Partridge,  in  his 
statement  of  Oct.  2,  1908,  to  the  author. 

15.  Memorandum  of  T.  W.  Higginson  attached  to  Le  Barnes's  letter  of  Nov.  15, 
1859*  to  Higginson.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

1 6.  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  166. 

17.  Le  Barnes  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Nov.  14  and  15,  1859.  —  Original  in  Hig 
ginson  Collection. 

18.  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  165. 

19.  Lysander  Spooner  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Nov.  20,  1859. — Original  in  Hig 
ginson  Collection. 

20.  Le  Barnes  to  Higginson,  Nov.  22,  1859.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Collec 
tion. 

21.  Ibid. 

22.  Ibid. 

23.  Ibid. 


NOTES  649 

r  24.  Le  Barnes,  Nov.  27,  from  New  York,  to  Higginson.  —  Original  in  Higgin- 
son  Collection. 

25.  Ibid. 

26.  Ibid. 
I    27.  Ibid. 

28.  Sanborn  to  Higginson,  Nov.  28,   1859.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Collec 
tion. 

29.  Message  of  Wise  to  Legislature  of  Virginia,  Dec.  5,  1859. 

30.  The  character  of  these  letters  is  well  summarized  in  the  report  of  the  Joint 
Committee  of  the  Legislature  of  Virginia,  Jan.  26,  1860.    Many  of  them  have 
been  reprinted  in  the  Richmond  Times  of  Dec.  22,  1901,  and  in  the  Virginia 
Magazine  of  History  and  Biography,  April,  1902,  to  July,  1903.    Those  cited  here 
are  to  be  found  therein,  save  the  one  from  Lewisburg,  which  is  in  the  possession 
of  Braxton  Davenport  Gibson,  of  Charlestown,  West  Virginia. 

31.  Webb  Scrap-Book,  vol.  17,  p.  157,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  see  also  N.  Y. 
Herald,  Dec.  4  and  17,  1859. 

32.  Richmond  Despatch,  Nov.  24,  1859. 

33.  See  '  John  Brown's  Raid,'  by  Andrew  Hunter,  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat, 
Sept.  5,  1887. 

34.  See  Document  Y,  pp.  31-38. 

1    35.  Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 
I    36.  Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  21  and  25,  1859. 

37.  Richmond  Despatch,  Nov.  15,  1859.    For  Hoyt's  own  account  of  his  expul 
sion,  see  his  letter  to  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Nov.  17,  1859.    Sennott,  however,  in  a 
letter  signed  as  "Counsel  for  Brown  and  A.  D.  Stevens,"  in  the  Philadelphia  Press 
of  Nov.  1 6,  1859,  denied  that  Brown's  counsel  was  advised  to  leave  Charlestown. 

38.  Statement  of  Cleon  Moore,  a  member  of  the  Charlestown  militia  company, 
Charlestown,  March  20,  1908,  to  the  author. 

39.  Ibid.,  and  Charlestown  despatch  in  Baltimore  American  of  Nov.  22,  1859. 

40.  Printed  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  May, 
1907. 

41.  Harper's  Ferry,  Nov.  19,  1859. — Originals  of  both  in  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham's 
collection. 

42.  Document  Y,  pp.  41-50- 

43.  'John  Brown's  Raid,'  by  Andrew  Hunter,  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat, 
Sept.  5,  1887. 

44.  Gov.  Wise's  copy  of  original  order  of  Nov.  24,  1859,  in  Department  of 
Archives  and  History,  Richmond. 

45.  Document  No.  I,  p.  51. 
I    46.  Ibid.,  pp.  52-60. 

[    47.  Document  Y,  p.  62. 

I    48.  Mr.  Hunter,  in  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat,  Sept.  5,  1887. 

j    49.  Document  Y,  p.  62. 

50.  See,  for  example,  quotation  from  Charlestown  Spirit  of  Jefferson,  in  Rich 
mond  Enquirer  of  Dec.  13,  1859,  and  the  Enquirer's  editorial  of  that  date;  Balti 
more  Exchange  of  Dec.  9;  also  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise,  by  Barton  H.  Wise,  p.  255. 
Later,  in  a  speech  at  the  State  Whig  Convention  of  1860,  John  Minor  Botts  ridi 
culed  Gov.  Wise  and  his  "men  in  buckram,"  calling  him  the  " unepauletted  hero 
of  the  Osawatomie  war."  "Whatever  John  Brown  left  undone  against  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  Virginia,"  declared  Mr.  Botts,  "has  been  most  effectually  car 
ried  out  by  his  executor,  the  late  Governor  of  Virginia."  From  Four  Years  Under 
Jdarse  Robert,  by  Major  Robert  Stiles,  New  York,  1904,  p.  32. 


650' 

51.  Document  No.  xxxi,  Virginia  State  Papers,  p.  6/ 

52.  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise,  by  Barton  H.  Wise,  pp.  263-264. 

53.  Ibid.,  p.  405. 

54.  Major-Gen.  William  B.  Taliaferro  to  Governor  Wise,  Charlestown,  Dec. 
2t  1859.  — Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham. 

55.  John  Brown's  Expedition,  Reviewed  in  a  Letter  from  Rev.  Theodore 
Parker,  at  Rome,  to  Francis  Jackson,  Boston.   Boston,  1860  (pamphlet),  p.  7. 

56.  Higginson  to  Sanborn,  Worcester,  Feb.  3,  1860.  —  Original  in  Higginson 
Collection,  Boston  Public  Library.   This  letter  never  was  sent. 

t  57-  Life  and  Times  of  Frederick  Douglass,  by  Himself,  p.  343  et  seq.  and  p.  358; 
see  also  Douglass's  self-justification  in  his  paper,  the  North  Star,  of  Nov.  4,  1859. 

58.  Sanborn,  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  I,  pp.  188  and  200. 

59.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

60.  Sanborn,  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  I,  p.  188. 

61.  J.  A.  Andrew  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  Oct.  21,  1859.  —  Original  in  G.  L.  Stearns 
Papers. 

62.  Life  of  George  L.  Stearns,  by  F.  P.  Stearns,  pp.  188  and  198. 

63.  John  A.  Andrew  to  Hon.  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  Boston,  Dec.  12,  1859.  — 
Original  in  possession  of  the  author. 

64.  See  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  16,  1859. 

65.  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  pp.  228-230;  see  also  Sanborn's  Life  and 
Letters  of  John  Brown,  pp.  438  and  447. 

66.  See  a  first  draft  of  a  letter  dated  Nov.  15,  1859,  now  in  the  Higginson  Col 
lection,  for  an  emphatic  statement  of  Mr.  Higginson's  feeling  at  that  time  about 
Dr.  Howe's  conduct. 

67.  See  letter  of  Higginson  to  Sanborn,  Worcester,  Nov.  15,  1859;  also  letter 
of  Sanborn  to  Higginson,  Concord,  Nov.  17,  1859.  —  Both  originals  in  Higginson 
Collection. 

68.  S.  G.  Howe  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Boston,  Feb.  16, 1860.  —  Original  in  Higgin 
son  Collection. 

69.  Ibid. 

70.  See  F.  B.  Sanborn's  letter  to  the  N.  Y.  Evening  Post,  dated  March  15,  1878, 
quoted  in  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  p.  230. 

71.  F.  B.  Sanborn  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Concord,  Nov.  17,  1859.  —  Original  in 
Higginson  Collection. 

72.  A  first  draft  of  this  letter  is  also  in  the  Higginson  Collection. 

73.  Sanborn,  Recollections  of  Seventy   Years,  p.  250.    For  the  original  of  the 
letter  here  cited,  see  F.  B.  Sanborn  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Concord,  Nov.  19,  1859, 
in  Higginson  Collection.    In  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  Mr.  Sanborn  recounts 
circumstantially  his  experiences  in  this  connection.    Other  related  matter  will  be 
found  in  the  Higginson  Collection,  and  also  in  Mr.  Sanborn's  letters  to  Charles 
Sumner  in  the  month  of  April,  1 860.  —  Originals  in  Sumner  Correspondence, 
Library  of  Harvard  University. 

74.  Sanborn,  Recollections,  pp.  206-207. 

75.  See  letter  of  G.  L.  Stearns  to  S.  G.  Howe,  Philadelphia,  Feb.  27,  1860.  — 
Original  in  G.  L.  Stearns  Papers. 

76.  Ibid. 

77.  Mason  Report,  p.  242. 

78.  Frothingham's  Gerrit  Smith  (suppressed  edition),  p.  244. 

79.  See  letter  of  Sanborn  to  Higginson  of  Nov.  17,  1859.  —  Original  in  Hig 
ginson  Collection.    Cf.  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  p.  196;  see  also  Sanborn's 
Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown,  p.  438,  and  Frothingham's  Gerrit  Smith,  pp.  242-243. 


NOTES  651 

80.  Testimony  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  taken  before  a  United  States  Commissioner 
in  the  case  of  Gerrit  Smith  vs.  the  [Chicago]  Tribune  Company,  at  Sandusky, 
Ohio,  July  19,  1867,  —  Mr.  Horace  White's  copy  of  this,  in  the  handwriting  of 
the  stenographer  who  took  the  notes,  is  in  the  author's  possession;  Sanborn's 
Recollections,  pp.  196-197. 

81.  Frothingham's  Gerrit  Smith  (suppressed  edition),  p.  249. 

82.  Gerrit  Smith's  Manifesto,  ibid.,  pp.  253-255. 

83.  Ibid.,  p.  241.  The  editor  of  the  Chicago  Tribune  in  1867,  Mr.  Horace  White, 
a  man  of  highest  integrity  and  judicial  temperament,  when  his  paper  was  sued  for 
libel  by  Gerrit  Smith  for  asserting  that  the  latter  feigned  insanity  in  order  to  es 
cape  the  consequences  of  the  raid,  made  an  investigation  of  his  own,  taking  the 
testimony  of  John  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Frederick  Douglass,  and  became  fully  convinced 
that  the  assertion  was  true.    The  Tribune  retracted  its  charge,  but  Mr.  White 
remains  of  the  same  opinion. 

84.  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

Well  might  the  words  written  by  another  anti-slavery  worker,  when  confined  in 
a  Southern  prison  for  attacking  slavery,  have  been  penned  of  John  Brown  at  this 
time: 

"High  walls  and  huge  the  BODY  may  confine, 
And  iron  gates  obstruct  the  prisoner's  gaze, 
And  massive  bolts  may  baffle  his  design, 
And  vigilant  keepers  watch  his  devious  ways; 
Yet  scorns  the  immortal  MIND  this  base  control! 
No  chains  can  bind  it,  and  no  cell  enclose: 
Swifter  than  light,  it  flies  from  pole  to  pole, 
And,  in  a  flash,  from  earth  to  heaven  it  goes!" 

From  a  sonnet,  'Freedom  of  the  Mind,'  by  William  Lloyd  Garrison.  —  Life  of 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  vol.  I,  p.  179. 

85.  Col.  William  Fellows,  a  jail  guard,  in  N.  Y.  Sun,  Feb.  13,  1898. 

86.  The  John  Brown  Invasion,  pp.  47-48. 

87.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

88.  John  Brown  to  "Wife  &  Children  every  one,11  Charlestown,  Nov.  8,  1859. — 
Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Clara  Endicott  Debuchy,  Boston,  Mass. 

89.  From  copy  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

90.  From  the  original  in  the  possession  of  Theodore  Parker  Adams,  Plymouth, 
Mass. 

91.  John  Brown  to  Rev.  Luther  Humphrey.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Messrs. 
D.  R.  and  William  G.  Taylor,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

92.  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

93.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Nov.  5,  1859. 

94.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Oct.  31,  1859. 

95.  From  MS.  of  the  late  Rev.  George  V.  Leech,  who  was  present  at  this  in 
terview. —  Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  George  V.  Leech,  Washington  D.  C. 

96.  Letter  of  Nov.  23,  1859;  Redpath's  Life,  p.  359. 

97.  See  issue  of  Independent  Democrat  of  Nov.  22,  1859. 

98.  Statement  of  Mrs.  Russell,  Jan.  II,  1908,  to  K.  Mayo. 

99.  See  letter  of  Thomas  Russell  to  C.  A.  Foster,  Plymouth,  Mass.  —  Original 
in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  Mr.  Phillips's  speech  will  be  found 
in  the  N.  Y.  Herald  of  Dec.  16,  1859. 

100.  T.  W.  Higginson  to  the  family  at  North  Elba,  Worcester,  Nov.  4,  1859.  — 
Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

101.  Mrs.  Spring's  MS.  narrative  is  in  the  possession  of  the  author. 


652  NOTES 

1 02.  Statement  of  E.  A.  Brackett  to  K.  Mayo,  Winchester,  Jan.  13,  1908;  for 
Hoyt's  letter,  and  a  Liberator  editorial,  relating  to  this  bust,  see  the  Liberator, 
Jan.  6,  1860. 

103.  See  letter  of  M.  B.  Lowry  in  the  True  American,  Nov.  26, 1859;  A  Tribute 
of  Gratitude  to  the  Hon.  M.  B.  Lowry,  Philadelphia,  1869  (pamphlet),  p.  31;  let 
ter  of  Gov.  Wise  to  B.  F.  Sloan,  Richmond,  Dec.  10,   1859,  —  original  in  Dreer 
Collection;  letter  of  M.  B.  Lowry  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Erie,  Pa.,  Dec.  3,  1859, 
—  original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

104.  See  S.  C.  Pomeroy's  letter  in  the  Christian  Cynosure  of  March  31,  1887. 

105.  Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  29,  1859,  quoting  correspondence  of  Baltimore 
American;  John  Brown,  by  Henry  Clay  Pate. 

1 06.  Telegram  of  Col.  Davis  to  Gov.  Wise,  Nov.  19,  1859,  —  original  in  pos 
session  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham;  N.  Y.  Herald,  Nov.  22,  23  and  Dec.  3;  N.  Y.  Trib 
une,  Nov.  30;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  25  and  29,  1859,  citing  correspondence 
of  Baltimore  American. 

107.  The  Two  Rebellions,  or  Treason  Unmasked,  by  a  Virginian,  Richmond, 
1865,  p.  97. 

108.  Richmond  Daily  Despatch,  Nov.  24,  1859.    "A  member  of  a  volunteer 
company  who  visited  Old  Brown  some  days  ago,  was  put  under  arrest  and  sent 
home  under  an  escort  for  having  observed  to  Brown  that  he  would  like  to  have 
the  pleasure  of  putting  a  rope  around  his  neck."  —  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  4,  1859. 

109.  See  Cooper  Union  speech  of  Wendell  Phillips,  reported  in  N.  Y.  Herald, 
Dec.  16,  1859. 

no.  Henry  A.  Wise,  by  Barton  H.  Wise,  pp.  249-250. 

in.  Mason  Report,  pp.  67-68.  A  MS.  copy  of  the  letter,  now  in  the  Dreer 
Collection,  bears  the  following  endorsement  in  Gov.  Wise's  hand:  "This  was 
prepared  from  a  promise  made  to  me  after  a  statement  made  in  presence  of  Brig. 
Genl.  William  C.  Scott  of  Powhatan.  H.  A.  WISE." 

112.  J.  M.  McKim  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Philadelphia,  Nov.  8  and  n,  1859,  — 
original  in  Higginson  Collection;  T.  W.  Higginson  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Worces 
ter,    Nov.   13,    1859,  —  original   in   possession  of   Miss   Brown;  J.    M.  McKim 
to  John  Brown,  Philadelphia,  Nov.  22,  1859,  —  original  in  possession  of  Miss 
Brown. 

113.  Mary  D.  Brown  to  the  Hon.  H.  A.  Wise,  Philadelphia,  Nov.  21,  1859,  - 
original  in  Dreer  Collection;  J.  M.  McKim  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Philadelphia, 
Nov.  23,  1859,  —  original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

114.  The  originals  of  both  letters  of  Gov.  Wise  to  Mrs.  Brown  are  in  the  Dreer 
Collection. 

115.  See  draft  of  telegram  in  Gov.  Wise's  hand,  endorsed  on  telegram  of  Gen. 
Taliaferro,  Charlestown,  Nov.  30,  1859.  —  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 

116.  Richmond  Enquirer,  Dec.  6,   1859,  citing  correspondence  of  Baltimore 
American. 

117.  See  letter  of  J.  M.  McKim,  unsigned,  dated  Nov.  28,  in  National  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard,  Dec.  3,  1859. 

118.  For  accounts  of  the  meeting,  see  N.  Y.  Tribune  and  N.  Y.  Herald  of  Dec. 
3  and  5,  1859. 

119.  Testimony  of    Andrew  Hunter,   Mason    Report,   p.  67;  see  also  'John 
Brown's  Raid,'  by  Andrew  Hunter,  New  Orleans  Times-Democrat,  Sept.  5,  1887. 
This  will,  dated  Dec.  2,  1859,  is  recorded  in  Will  Book  No.  16,  p.  143,  of  Jefferson 
County  Court  Records.    / 

120.  Original  in  the  George  L.  Stearns  Papers,  Medford,  Mass. 

121.  Original  in  Dreer  Collection. 


NOTES  653 

122.  The  passages  marked  are  thus  given  in  the  N.  Y.  Illustrated  News  of 
Dec.  10,  1859: 

"Genesis xv,  13, 14;  XL,  n,  12,  13,55.56,57:  L,  151021.  Exodusi,  all;  11,3,4,  II 
to  15;  in,  7,  12  to  22;  v,  13  to  23;  vi,  4  and  5;  xv,  i  to  13;  xvm,  9  to  11;  xxi,  5 
to  10,  15,  26  to  34;  xxii,  21  to  24;  xxin,  I  to  9.  Leviticus  xxiv,  13,  15,  18,  33 
to  37;  xxv,  8  to  17,  35  to  55;  xxvi,  13,  35,  36.  Deuteronomy  i,  17;  x,  17  to  19; 

XV,  12  tO  19;  XVI,  II  tO  14;  XXI,  IO  tO  14;  XXIII,  15  tO  17;  XXIV,  7,  14  tO  18,  22. 

Job  xxiv,  17  to  19;  xxix,  12  to  14;  xxxi,  13  to  1 6,  38  to  40.  Proverbs  xiv,  20  to 
22,  31;  xxii,  16,  22,  23.  Ecclesiastes  iv,  i,  2;  in,  16,  17;  v,  8,  9;  vii,  7.  Isaiah 
ix,  13  to  17;  xxxin,  15;  XLII,  7;  XLIX,  24  to  26;  LII,  5;  LIV,  14;  LXI,  3  to  8;  LXIV, 
3  to  15;  LXI,  i,  2.  Jeremiah  n,  8,  34,  35;  v,  13,  14,  25  to  31;  vi,  13  to  17;  vn,  I 
to  9;  VIH,  10  to  12;  ix,  I  to  10,  23,  24;  xn,  i  to  4.  Matthew  v,  16  to  44;  vii, 
16  to  19;  ix,  13;  xn,  7;  xxm,  14,  23,  29  to  35;  xxv,  44  to  46.  Revelations  xvm, 
13."  This  Bible,  originally  presented  to  John  H.  Blessing,  of  Charlestown,  is  now 
in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Frank  G.  Logan,  of  Chicago. 

123.  The  original  of  this  letter,  with  its  enclosures,  is  in  the  Dreer  Collection.    ] 

124.  Col.  William  Fellows,  in  N.  Y.  Sun  of  Feb.  13,  1898. 

125.  N.  Y.  Tribune  and  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  3, 1859;  Dr.  Starry 's '  Recollections/ 
in  Semi- Weekly  Tribune,  May  27,  1884. 

126.  Col.  William  Fellows,  in  N.  Y.  Sun i_of  Feb.  13,  1898.    ' 

127.  Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Frank  G.  Logan,  of  Chicago. 

128.  General  Turner  Ashby  was  born  in  Rose  Hill,  Fauquier  County,  Virginia, 
in  1824.  A  planter  and  a  local  politician,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  raised  a 
regiment,  the  Seventh  Virginia  Cavalry,  and  became  its  lieutenant-colonel.    He 
was  killed  in  action  near  Harrisburg,  Virginia,  June  6,  1862. 

129.  See  Richmond  Enquirer,  Nov.  29,  1859. 

130.  See  letter  of  J.  M.  McKim  to  Mrs.  John  Brown,  Philadelphia,  Dec.  2, 
1860.  —  Original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown. 

131.  Statement  of   Mr.  Cleon   Moore,  Charlestown,  March  20,  1908,  to  K. 
Mayo;  N.  Y.  Herald  and  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Dec.  3,  1859. 

132.  Memoirs  of  Stonewall  Jackson,  by  his  widow,  Mary  Anna  Jackson,  Louis 
ville,  1895,  p.  131. 

133.  For  Col.  Preston's  detailed  account  of  the  execution,  dated  Charlestown 
Dec.  2, 1859,  see  Life  and  Letters  of  Margaret  Junkin  Preston,  by  Elizabeth  Preston 
Allan,  Boston,  1903,  pp.  111-117;  see  also  Gen.  T.  J.  Jackson's  narrative,  in  the 
volume  cited  above;  Murat  Halstead's  recollections  were  published  in  the  Inde 
pendent,  Dec.  i,  1898;  Mr.  Andrew  Hunter's  article  in  the  New  Orleans  Times- 
Democrat  is  important  here.   The  author  has  also  consulted,  among  other  sources, 
aside  from  local  and  metropolitan  press  accounts,  the  Military  Order-Book  of  the 
John  Brown  Raid,  Department  of  Archives,  Richmond;  Doc.  No.  xxvin,  Vir 
ginia  State  Papers;  military  orders  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Braxton  Davenport 
Gibson,  of  Charlestown;  the  affidavit  of  John  Avis  (see  Appendix),  in  possession 
of  Rev.  Dr.  Abner  Hopkins,  of  Charlestown;  and  the  statements  of  Col.  Chew, 
Mr.  Cleon   Moore  and   Mr.  L.   P.   Starry,  Charlestown,  March,  1908,  of   Mr. 
Charles  P.  Conklyn,  Charlestown,  April  9,  1909,  of  Mayor  Philip  A.  Welford, 
Richmond,  April  21,  1909,  and  of  Mr.  Jacob  Tutwiler,  Harper's  Ferry,  April  14, 
1909,  all  eye-witnesses  of  the  execution,  all  to  K.  Mayo. 

134.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  3,  1859. 

135'  Life  of  John  A.  Andrew,  by  Henry  Greenleaf  Pearson,  Boston,  1904, 
vol.  i,  p.  loo. 


654  NOTES 


CHAPTER  XV 
YET   SHALL  HE  LIVE 

1.  A  Memoir  of  Hector  Tyndale,  Philadelphia,  1882,  p.  8;  letter  of  Major  T.  J. 
Jackson  to  his  wife,  Charlestown,  Dec.  2,  1859,  cited  in  Memoirs  of  Stonewall 
Jackson. 

2.  Order  of  Gen.  William  B.  Taliaferro  to  Andrew  E.  Kennedy,  N.  Y.  Herald, 
Dec.  5,  1859;  Order  No.  55,  Special  Order-Book  of  the  John  Brown  Raid,  Depart 
ment  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond. 

3.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  6,  1859;  see  also  letter  of  Alfred  M.  Barbour,  Superin 
tendent  of  the  arsenal,  to  J.  Miller  McKim,  Harper's  Ferry,  Dec.  8,  1859,  — 
original  in  J.  M.  McKim  Collection,  Cornell  University. 

4.  Thomas  Featherstonhaugh,  'Burial  of  John  Brown's  Followers,'  New  Eng 
land  Magazine,  April,  1901. 

5.  Broadside  announcement,  dated  Ravenna,  Friday  morning,  Dec.  2, 1859,  in 
Department  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond,  Va. 

6.  See  A  Tribute  of  Respect  Commemorative  of  the  Worth  and  Sacrifice  of  John 
Brown  of  Ossawatomie,  Cleveland,  1859,  a  pamphlet  containing  an  account  of  the 
Cleveland  meeting. 

7.  Historical  Address  delivered  I2th  of  January,  1908,  by  Horace  Howard 
Furness,  Philadelphia,  1908,  p.  16;  see  also  Life  and  Letters  of  Peter  and  Susan 
Lesley,  p.  379. 

8.  Liberator,  Dec.  9,  1859. 

9.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  5,  1859;  Liberator,  Dec.  9,  1859.   Less  than  two  months 
later,  at  another  meeting,  Mr.  Garrison  said:  "The  sympathy  and  admiration 
now  so  widely  felt  for  him  [John  Brown]  prove  how  marvelous  has  been  the  change 
effected  in  public  opinion  during  thirty  years  of  moral  agitation  —  a  change  so 
great,  indeed,  that  whereas,  ten  years  since,  there  were  thousands  who  could  not 
endure  my  lightest  word  of  rebuke  to  the  South,  they  can  now  easily  swallow 
John  Brown  whole,  and  his  rifle  into  the  bargain.   In  firing  his  gun,  he  has  merely 
told  us  what  time  of  day  it  is.   It  is  high  noon,  thank  God!"  —  Liberator,  Feb.  3, 
i860. 

10.  Herald,  Nov.  20,  1859;  Liberator,  Nov.  25,  1859;  The  John  Brown  Invasion, 
pp.  96-110. 

11.  Horace  Howard  Furness,  Historical  Address  of  Jan.  12,  1908,  p.  18. 

12.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  5,  1859. 

13.  This  story  of  the  trip  to  North  Elba  with  the  body  is  drawn  from  the  N.  Y. 
Herald,  Dec.  sand  6;  The  John  Brown  Invasion,  pp. 70-79;  and  the  letter  of  D. 
Turner  to  Dr.  Joshua  Young,  Salem,  Jan.  29,  1899, — original  in  possession  of 
Dr.  Young's  family,  Winchester,  Mass. 

14.  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Dec.  12,  1859;  The  John  Brown  Invasion,  pp.  72-79;  'The 
Funeral  of  John  Brown, '  by  Rev.  Joshua  Young,  New  England  Magazine,  April, 
1904. 

15.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  1859. 

1 6.  Boston  Courier  Report  of  the  Union  Meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Thursday, 
Dec.  8,  1859;  Boston,  1859  (pamphlet). 

17.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  20,  1859. 

1 8.  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Bloody  Outbreak  at  Harper's   Ferry  published 
by  the  New  York  Democratic  Vigilant  Association,  New  York,  1859  (pam 
phlet),  p.  4. 


NOTES  655 

r  19.  Cabot's  Emerson,  p.  597 ;  Life  of  Henry  W.  Longfellow,  by  Samuel  Long 
fellow,  vol.  2,  p.  347. 

20.  Lecture  delivered  in  Worcester,  Mass.,  Dec.  12,  reported  in  Ashtabula, 
Ohio,  Sentinel,  Dec.  15,  1859. 

21.  Letter  from  Theodore  Parker  at  Rome  to  Francis  Jackson,  Boston,  Nov. 

24,  1859;  John  W.  Chadwick's  Theodore  Parker,  Boston,  1900,  p.  366. 

22.  Letter  of  Dec.  4,  1859,  to  Dr.  Henry  Drisler,  Life  and  Letters  of  Francis 
Lieber,  edited  by  Thomas  S.  Perry,  Boston,  1882,  pp.  307-308. 

23.  As  reported  at  the  time  by  Dr.  Wilder;  see  Topeka,  Kansas,  Capital,  October, 

25,  1908. 

24.  New  York  Herald,  Feb.  28,  1860. 

»    25.  Works  of  William  H.  Seward,  Boston,  1884,  vol.  4,  p.  636. 

*    26.  Congressional  Globe,  36th  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  50,  pp.  553-  554. 

27.  Ibid.,  p.  61. 

28.  Delivered  Jan.  24,  1860.    Cited  in  Pleasant  A.  Stovall's  Robert  Toombs, 
New  York,  1892,  pp.  169-174. 

29.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  10,  1859. 
!    30.  Liberator,  Dec.  16,  1859. 

[    31.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  15,  1859. 

32.  Doc.  No.  xxxi ;  report  of  the  Joint  Committee  of  the  General  Assembly 
of  Virginia  on  the  Harper's  Ferry  Outrages,  Jan.  26,  1860. 

33.  Virginia  State  Papers,  Doc.  No.  LVIII. 

34.  Liberator,  Dec.  16,  1859. 

35.  Benjamin  F.  Shambaugh,  Messages  and  Proclamations  of  the  Governors  of 
Iowa,  Iowa  City,  1903,  vol.  2,  pp.  240-241;  for  the  Minority  Protest,  see  Senate 
and  House  Journal  of  the  8th  General  Assembly  of  Iowa. 

36.  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  Dec.  16,  1859. 

37.  Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  17,  1860. 
{    38.  Nov.  28,  1859. 

t    39.  Dec.  2,  1859. 

;    40.  Weekly  Portage  Sentinel,  Dec.  7,  1859. 

!    41.  Dec.  3  and  7,  1859. 

42.  John  Brown,  par  Victor  Hugo,  Paris,  1861.     • 

43.  Hon.  Daniel  W.  Voorhees.  .  .  .  Speech  delivered  at  Charlestown,  Virginia, 
Nov.  8,  1850.  .  .  .  Tallahassee,  Fla.    1860  (pamphlet). 

44.  N.  Y.  Herald,  Dec.  16,  1859. 

45.  The  Coppoc  letter  is  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune  of  Dec.  12,  1859.  See  also  letter 
of  Thomas  Winn,  Springdale,   Iowa,  1st  mo.  13,  1860,  to   Mary  A.   Brown,  — 
original  in  possession  of  Miss  Brown;  statement  of  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams, 
Petrolia,  Oct.  2  and  3,  1908. 

46.  Charles  Lenhart,  an  lowan,  a  printer  by  trade,  had  led  a  company  of  four 
teen  men  in  numerous  attacks  upon  the  Border  Ruffians,  making  a  name  for  him 
self  as  a  Free  State  leader  second  only  to  those  of  Capt.  Montgomery  and  John 
Brown.    He  easily  found  employment  in  a  printing-office  in  Charlestown,  and, 
professing  profound  hatred  for  all  Abolitionists,  was  readily  enlisted  as  a  guard. 
He  remained  in  Charlestown  until  after  the  execution  of  Stevens  and  Hazlett, 
when  he  returned  to  Kansas.   He  died  in  March,  1863,  when  a  first  lieutenant 
in  Col.  William  A.  Phillips's  Third  Regiment  of  the  Indian  Brigade.   See  letter 
to  Leavenworth,  Kansas,  Conservative,  May,  1863,  by  Richard  J.  Hinton;  also 
Hinton's  John  Brown,  pp.  396-397. 

47.  Confession  of  Cook  and  Coppoc  on  the  morning  of  their  execution,  Hinton, 
pp.  402-403;  see  also  N.  Y.  Tribune,  Dec.  17,  1859. 


656  NOTES 

48.  Richman's  John  Brown,  p.  49. 

49.  Confession  of  Cook  and  Coppoc. 

'  50.  Statement  of  Annie  Brown  Adams,  Petrolia,  Oct.  2,  1908;  an  important 
letter  in  the  extradition  proceedings  in  the  case  of  Hazlett  is  in  the  J.  Miller 
McKim  Collection,  Cornell  University  Library,  signed  "C"  and  dated  Carlisle, 
Nov.  i,  1859;  see  also  John  Brown's  Raid,  a  pamphlet  by  W.  J.  Shearer,  compris 
ing  a  lecture  delivered  Jan.  17,  1905,  at  Carlisle,  Pa. 

51.  MS.  narrative  of  Jennie  Dunbar  Garcelon,  October,  1908,  in  possession  of 
the  author;  Miss  Dunbar's  letter  to  Redpath,  Cherry  Valley,  Ohio,  May  7,  1860, 

—  copy  in  possession  of  the  author;  Mrs.  Spring's  MS.  narrative,  in  possession  of 
the  author;  see  also  MS.  material  in  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

52.  Hinton  to  Higginson,  Dec.  13,  1859.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

53.  T.  W.  Higginson  to  his  wife,  Feb.  17,  1860.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Col 
lection. 

54.  Le  Barnes  to  Higginson,  Boston,  Jan.  II,  1860.  —  Original  in  Higginson 
Collection. 

55.  See  Reminiscences  of  James  Hanway  in  Topeka  Commonwealth ,  Jan.  31, 
1878,  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society,  and  Hinton's  letter  of  April 
29,  1894,  appended  thereto;  see  also  Hinton's  John  Brown,  p.  521. 

56.  James    Montgomery   (Henry  Martin)  to    T.  W.  Higginson   (Rev.  Theo. 
Brown),  —  original  in  T.  W.  Higginson  Collection;   Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  215. 

57.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  230;  letter  of  Annie  Brown,  North 
Elba,  Jan.  1 1, 1860,  to  T.  W.  Higginson.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Collection. 

58.  W.  W.  Thayer,  Indianapolis,  Nov.  15,  1894,  to  R.  J.  Hinton,  —  original  in 
Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  see  also  interview  of  Thayer  in  Weekly 
Indiana  State  Journal,  Indianapolis,  Aug.  23,  1893;  also  Kansas  Historical  Society 
Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  215,  and  Hinton,  p.  526,  and  Hinton  Collections. 

59.  T.  W.  Higginson's  pencilled  memorandum  of  conversation  with  C.  P.  Tiddi 
Feb.  10,  1860,  and  letter  of  C.  P.  Tidd  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  Jan.  20,  1860.  — 
Originals  in  Higginson  Collection. 

60.  For  the  negotiations  with  the  Germans,  see  Hinton  Papers,  in  Kansas 
Historical  Society,  published  in  vol.  8  of  the  Collections  ;  also  letter  of  Hinton  to 
Higginson,  Feb.  18,  1860,  in  Higginson  Collection;  Hinton's  John  Brown,  p.  525. 

61.  Higginson  in  Worcester  to  Le  Barnes  in  New  York,  Feb.  15  and  16,  1860. 

—  Original  in  Hinton  Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society;  Hinton,  p.  525. 

62.  O.  E.  Morse,  'Attempted  Rescue  of  John  Brown,'  in  Kansas  Historical 
Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  215.   Like  Hanway,  Col.  D.  R.  Anthony,  J.  A.  Pike 
and  others,  Mr.  Morse  proves  the  fallibility  of  the  human  mind  by  insisting  that 
the  Kansans  under  Montgomery  went  East  to  rescue  John  Brown,  not  Stevens 
and  Hazlett.   The  weight  of  evidence  is  clearly  on  the  other  side,  because  of  R.  J. 
Hinton's  denial  of  Hanway's  statement,  and  the  contemporary  letters  written  by 
Col.  Higginson  from  Harrisburg  to  his  wife,  the  preservation  of  which  was  a  most 
valuable  service  to  history  on  Col.  Higginson's  part.    The  testimony  of  W.  W. 
Thayer  is  also  on  the  side  of   the  later  expedition.    Curiously  enough,  J.  W. 
Le  Barnes,  who,  with  Hinton  and  Montgomery,  had  more  to  do  with  the  efforts 
to  save  Stevens  and  Hazlett  than  any  one  else,  and  many  of  whose  contemporary 
letters  telling  of  the  plot  are  preserved,  assured  Hinton  on  June  30,  1894,  "I 
never  knew  anything  about  the  Stevens  and  Hazlett  plan."    These  lapses  of 
memory  will  suggest  to  the  reader  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  recollections  of 
men  contemporary  with  Brown  which  has  repeatedly  confronted  the  writer. 

63.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  pp.  215-216. 


NOTES  657 

64.  See  original  telegram  in  Higginson  Collection. 

65.  See  original  telegram  in  Higginson  Collection. 

66.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  pp.  216,  219,  222,  225. 

67.  Hinton,  p.  524;  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  232. 

68.  Original  memorandum  in  Higginson  Collection. 

69.  T.  W.  Higginson  to  his  wife,  Feb.  17,  1860.  —  Original  in  Higginson  Col 
lection. 

70.  T.  W.  Higginson  to  J.  W.  Le  Barnes,  Feb.  17,  1860. — Original  in  Hinton 
Papers,  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

71.  T.  W.  Higginson  to  his  wife,  Harrisburg,  Feb.  19,  1860.  —  Original  in  Higgin 
son  Collection. 

72.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  233;  Hinton,  pp.  501-502;  O.  E. 
Morse,  in  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  218. 

73.  Hinton,  p.  524. 

74.  John  Letcher  to  Andrew  Hunter,  Richmond,  Va.,  Jan.  26,  1860.  —  Original 
in  Department  of  Archives  and  History,  Richmond. 

75.  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  234;  W.  W.  Thayer,  in  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  State 
Journal,  Aug.  23,  1893. 

76.  Thayer,  as  above. 

77.  Kansas  Historical  Society  Collections,  vol.  8,  p.  220;  Cheerful   Yesterdays, 
p.  231;  R.  J.  Hinton,  The  Rebel  Invasion  of  Missouri  and  Kansas,  Chicago,  1865, 
pp.  65-66. 

78.  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  234. 

79.  Hinton,  John  Brown  and  His  Men,  p.  526;  Hazlett  to  Mrs.  Rebecca  Spring, 
March  15,  1860.  —  Original  in  possession  of  the  author. 

80.  Aside  from  that  in  correlated  biographies  and  in  the  contemporary  press, 
interesting  material  regarding  the  Hyatt  case  will  be  found  in  the  letters  of  John 
A.  Andrew,  Horace  Greeley,  G.  L.  Stearns,  S.  E.  Sewall  and  others,  to  Charles 
Sumner,  in  the  Sumner  Correspondence,  Library  of  Harvard  University;  see  also 
the  letter  and  scrap-book  of  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  kept  during  his  imprisonment  and 
now  in  possession  of  his  son,  Dr.  Thaddeus  Hyatt,  of  Brooklyn. 

81.  June  22,  1860. 

82.  An  admirable  outline  of  the  contest  for  the  Speakership  is  to  be  found  in 
Rhodes,  vol.  2,  pp.  418-426. 

83.  Congressional  Globe,  36th  Congress,  1st  session,  vol.  50,  pp.  29-30. 

84.  Ibid.,  p.  124. 

85.  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  Dec.  23,  1859.    On  Nov.  20,  1859,  the  N.  Y. 
Herald  printed  the  following  from  its  Richmond  correspondent:  "Every  seventy- 
five  men  out  of  a  hundred  in  this  community  are  in  favor  of  disunion  at  this 
moment.   I  have  not  spoken  to  a  man  for  four  weeks  past  upon  that  subject  who 
was  not  ready  to  take  grounds  in  favor  of  a  Southern  confederacy.   A  hint  from 
Governor  Wise  favoring  such  a  project  would  be  followed  by  a  substantial  decla 
ration  in  approval  of  it  in  Virginia  and  the  whole  South." 

86.  'The  John  Brown  Song,'  by  J.H.Jenkins,  N.  Y.  Evening  Post,  Nov.  27, 1909. 

87.  Johnston  and  Browne,  Life  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Philadelphia,  1878, 

P-  367. 

88.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  54,  Part  I,  36th  Congress,  2d  session,  p.  12. 

89.  George  Hoadley  to  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Cincinnati,  Dec.  3,  1859.  —  Original 
in  Salmon  P.  Chase  Correspondence,  MSS.  Department,  Library  of  Congress. 

90.  "L'Assassinat  de  la  Ddivrance  par  la  Liberte*"  John  Brown,  par  Victor 
Hugo,  Paris,  1861,  p.  5. 


APPENDIX 


THE  original  document,  as  written  by  John  Brown,  is  preserved 
in  the  Maryland  Historical  Society  and  reads  thus:  — 

CHAP  IST 

Sambo's  Mistakes  For  the  Rams  Horn 

Mess  Editors  Notwithstanding  I  may  have  committed  a  few  mis 
takes  in  the  course  of  a  long  life  like  others  of  my  colored  brethren 
yet  you  will  perceive  at  a  glance  that  I  have  always  been  remarkable 
for  a  seasonable  discovery  of  my  errors  and  quick  perception  of  the 
true  course.  I  propose  to  give  you  a  few  illustrations  in  this  and  the 
following  chapters.  For  instance  when  I  was  a  boy  I  learned  to  read 
but  instead  of  giving  my  attention  to  sacred  &  profane  history  by 
which  I  might  have  become  acquainted  with  the  true  character  of 
God  &  of  man  learned  the  true  course  for  individuals,  societies,  & 
nations  to  pursue  stored  my  mind  with  an  endless  variety  of  rational 
and  practical  ideas,  profited  by  the  experience  of  millions  of  others 
of  all  ages,  fitted  myself  for  the  most  important  stations  in  life,  & 
fortified  my  mind  with  the  best  &  wisest  resolutions,  &  noblest  sen 
timents,  &  motives,  I  have  spent  my  whole  life  devouring  silly 
novels  &  other  miserable  trash  such  as  most  of  newspapers  of  the 
day  &  other  popular  writings  are  filled  with,  thereby  unfitting  myself 
for  the  realities  of  life  &  acquiring  a  taste  for  nonsense  &  low  wit,  so 
that  I  have  no  rellish  for  sober  truth,  useful  knowledge  or  practical 
wisdom.  By  this  means  I  have  passed  through  life  without  proffit  to 
myself  or  others,  a  mere  blank  on  which  nothing  worth  peruseing  is 
written.  But  I  can  see  in  a  twink  where  I  missed  it.  Another  error 
into  which  I  fell  in  early  life  was  the  notion  that  chewing  &  smoking 
tobacco  would  make  a  man  of  me  but  little  inferior  to  some  of  the 
whites.  The  money  I  spent  in  this  way  would  with  the  interest  of  it 
have  enabled  me  to  have  relieved  a  great  many  sufferers  supplyed 
me  with  a  well  selected  interesting  library,  &  pa[i]d  for  a  good  farm 
for  the  support  &  comfort  of  my  old  age;  whereas  I  have  now 
neith[er]  books,  clothing,  the  satisfaction  of  having  benefited  others 
nor  wher  to  lay  my  hoary  head.  But  I  can  see  in  a  moment  where  I 
missed  it.  Another  of  the  few  errors  of  my  life  is  that  I  have  joined 
the  Free  Masons  Odd  Fellows  Sons  of  Temperance,  &  a  score  of 
other  secret  societies  instead  of  seeking  the  company  of  intelligent 


66o  APPENDIX 

wise  &  good  men  from  whom  I  might  have  learned  much  that  would 
be  interesting,  instructive,  &  useful  &  have  in  that  way  squandered 
a  great  amount  of  most  precious  time,  &  money  enough  sometimes 
in  a  single  year  which  if  I  had  then  put  the  same  out  on  interest  and 
kept  it  so  would  have  kept  me  always  above  board  given  me  char 
acter,  &  influence  amongst  men,  or  have  enabled  me  to  pursue  some 
respectable  calling,  so  that  I  might  employ  others  to  their  benefit  & 
improvement,  but  as  it  is  I  have  always  been  poor,  in  debt,  &  now 
obliged  to  travel  about  in  search  of  employment  as  a  hostler  shoe 
black  &  fiddler.  But  I  retain  all  my  quickness  of  perception  I  can  see 
readily  where  I  missed  it. 

CHAP  2D 

Sambos  Mistakes. 

Another  error  of  my  riper  years  has  been  that  when  any  meeting 
of  colored  people  has  been  called  in  order  to  consider  of  any  impor 
tant  matter  of  general  interest  I  have  been  so  eager  to  display  my 
spouting  talents  &  so  tenacious  of  some  trifling  theory  or  other  that 
I  have  adopted  that  I  have  generally  lost  all  sight  of  the  business  in 
hand  consumed  the  time  disputing  about  things  of  no  moment  & 
thereby  defeated  entirely  many  important  measures  calculated  to 
promote  the  general  welfare;  but  I  am  happy  to  say  I  can  see  in  a 
minute  where  I  missed  it.  Another  small  error  of  my  life  (for  I  never 
committed  great  blunders)  has  been  that  I  never  would  (for  the  sake 
of  union  in  the  furtherance  of  the  most  vital  interests  of  our  race) 
yield  any  minor  point  of  difference.  In  this  way  I  have  always  had 
to  act  with  but  a  few,  or  more  frequently  alone  &  could  accomplish 
nothing  worth  living  for,  but  I  have  one  comfort,  I  can  see  in  a 
minute  where  I  missed  it.  Another  little  fault  which  I  have  com 
mitted  is  that  if  in  anything  another  man  has  failed  of  coming  up  to 
my  standard,  notwithstanding  he  might  possess  many  of  the  most 
valuable  traits  &  be  most  admirably  adapted  to  fill  some  one  impor 
tant  post,  I  would  reject  him  entirely,  injure  his  influence,  oppose 
his  measures,  and  even  glory  in  his  defeats  while  his  intentions  were 
good,  &  his  plans  well  laid.  But  I  have  the  great  satisfaction  of  being 
able  to  say  without  fear  of  contradiction  that  I  can  see  verry  quick 
where  /  missed  it. 

To  be  continued 

CHAP  30 
Sambos  Mistakes. 

Another  small  mistake  which  I  have  made  is  that  I  could  never 
bring  myself  to  practise  any  present  self  denial  although  my  theories 
have  been  excellent.  For  instance  I  have  bought  expensive  gay 
clothing,  nice  Canes,  Watches,  Safety  Chains,  Finger-rings,  Breast 
Pins  &  many  other  things  of  a  like  nature,  thinking  I  might  by  that 
means  distinguish  myself  from  the  vulgar,  as  some  of  the  better 
class  of  whites  do.  I  have  always  been  of  the  foremost  in  getting  up 


APPENDIX  66i 

expensive  parties,  &  running  after  fashionable  amusements,  and  have 
indulged  my  appetite  freely  whenever  I  had  the  means  (&  even  with 
borro[w]ed  means)  have  patronized  the  dealers  in  Nuts,  Candy,  etc., 
freely  &  have  sometimes  bought  good  suppers  &  was  always  a  regu 
lar  customer  at  Livery  stables.  By  these  &  many  other  means  I  have 
been  unable  to  benefit  my  suffering  Brethren,  &  am  now  but  poorly 
able  to  keep  my  own  Soul  &  boddy  together;  but  do  not  think  me 
thoughtless  or  dull  of  apprehention,  for  I  can  see  at  once  where  I 
missed  it. 

Another  trifling  error  of  my  life  has  been  that  I  have  always  ex 
pected  to  secure  the  favour  of  the  whites  by  tamely  submitting  to 
every  species  of  indignity  contempt  &  wrong,  insted  of  nobly  resist 
ing  their  brutual  aggressions  from  principle  &  taking  my  place  as  a 
man  &  assuming  the  responsibilities  of  a  man  a  citizen,  a  husband,  a 
father,  a  brother,  a  neighbour,  a  friend  as  God  required  of  every  one 
(if  his  neighbour  will  allow  him  to  do  it;)  but  I  find  that  I  get  for  all 
my  submission  about  the  same  reward  that  the  Southern  Slaveo- 
crats  render  to  the  Dough-faced  Statesmen  of  the  North  for  being 
bribed  &  browbeat,  &  fooled  &  cheated,  as  the  Whigs  &  Democrats 
love  to  be,  &  think  themselves  highly  honored  if  they  may  be  al 
lowed  to  lick  up  the  spittle  of  a  Southerner.  I  say  I  get  the  same 
reward.  But  I  am  uncomm[on]  quick  sighted  I  can  see  in  a  minute 
where  I  missed  it.  Another  little  blunder  which  I  made  is,  that 
while  I  have  always  been  a  most  zealous  Abolitionist  I  have  been 
constantly  at  war  with  my  friends  about  certain  religious  tenets.  I 
was  first  a  Presbyterian,  but  I  could  never  think  of  acting  with  my 
Quaker  friends  for  they  were  the  rankest  heretiks  &  the  Baptists 
would  be  in  the  water,  &  the  Methodists  denied  the  doctrine  of 
Election,  etc.  &  later  years  since  becoming  enlightened  by  Garrison, 
Abby  Kelley  and  other  really  benevolent  persons  I  have  been  spend 
ing  all  my  force  on  my  friends  who  love  the  Sabbath,  &  have  felt 
that  all  was  at  stake  on  that  point  just  as  it  has  proved  to  be  of  late 
in  France  in  the  abolition  of  Slavery  in  their  colonies.  Now  I  cannot 
doubt,  Mess  Editors,  notwithstanding  I  have  been  unsuccessful, 
that  you  will  allow  me  full  credit  for  my  peculiar  quick-sightedness. 
I  can  see  in  one  second  where  I  missed  it. 


B 

JOHN  BROWN'S  COVENANT  FOR  THE  ENLISTMENT  OF  HIS  VOLUNTEER- 
REGULAR  COMPANY.  August,  1856 

KANSAS  TERRITORY,  A.  D.  1856 
I.  The  Covenant. 

We  whose  names  are  found  on  these  &  the  next  following  pages  do 
hereby  enlist  ourselves  to  serve  in  the  Free  State  cause  under  John 


662  APPENDIX 

Brown  as  commander  during  the  full  period  of  time  affixed  to  our 
names  respectively:  and  we  severally  pledge  our  word  and  sacred 
honor  to  said  Commander ;  and  to  each  other,  that  during  the  time 
for  which  we  have  enlisted  we  will  faithfully  and  punctually  perform 
our  duty  (in  such  capacity  or  place  as  may  be  assigned  to  us  by  a 
Majority  of  all  the  votes  of  those  associated  with  us  or  of  the  com 
panies  to  which  we  may  belong  as  the  case  may  be)  as  a  regular  vol 
unteer  force  for  the  maintenance  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the 
Free  State  citizens  of  Kansas :  and  we  further  agree  that  as  individ 
uals  we  will  conform  to  the  by  Laws  of  this  association  &  that  we  will 
insist  on  their  regular  and  punctual  enforcement  as  a  first  and  last 
duty;  and  in  short  that  we  will  observe  and  maintain  a  strict  an[d] 
thorough  military  discipline  at  all  times  untill  our  term  of  service 
expires. 

Names,  date  of  enlistment,  and  term  of  service  on  next  Pages. 
Term  of  service  omitted  for  want  of  room  (principally  for  the  War.) 

2.  Names  and  date  of  enlistment. 

Aug.  22.  Wm.  Partridge  (imprisoned),  John  Salathiel,  S.  Z.  Brown, 
John  Goodell,  L.  F.  Parsons,  N.  B.  Phelps,  Wm.  B.  Harris. 

Aug.  23.  Jason  Brown  (son  of  commander;  imprisoned.) 

Aug.  24.  J.  Benjamin  (imprisoned) 

Aug.  25.  Cyrus  Tator,  R.  Reynolds  (imprisoned),  Noah  Fraze  (ist 
Lieut.),  Wm.  Miller,  John  P.  Glenn,  Wm.  Quick,  M.  D.  Lane, 
Amos  Alderman,  August  Bondie,  Charles  Kaiser  (murdered  Aug. 
30),  Freeman  Austin  (aged  57  years),  Samuel  Hauser,  John  W. 
Foy,  Jas.  H.  Holmes  (Capt). 

Aug.  26.  Geo.  Partridge  (killed  Aug.  30),  Wm.  A.  Sears. 

Aug.  27.  S.  H.  Wright. 

Aug.  29.  B.  Darrach  (Surgeon),  Saml.  Farrar. 

Sept.  8.  Timothy  Kelley,  Jas.  Andrews. 

Sept.  9.  W.  H.  Leman,  Charles  Oliver,  D.  H.  Hurd. 

Sept.  15.  Wm.  F.  Harris. 

Sept.  16.  Saml.  Geer  (Commissary). 

3.  Bylaws  of  the  Free- State  regular  Volunteers  of  Kansas  enlisted 
under  the  command  of  John  Brown. 

Article  1st.  Those  who  agree  to  be  governed  by  the  following  ar 
ticles  &  whose  names  are  appended  will  be  known  as  the  Kansas 
regulars. 

Article  2d.  Every  officer  connected  with  this  organization  (except 
the  Commander  already  named)  shall  be  elected  by  a  majority  of 
the  members  if  above  a  Captain;  &  if  a  Captain  or  under  a  Cap 
tain,  by  a  majority  of  the  company  to  which  they  belong. 

Article  30!.  All  vacancies  shall  be  filled  by  vote  of  the  majority  of 
members;  or  companies  as  the  case  may  be:  &  all  members  shall 
be  alike  eligible  to  the  highest  office. 


APPENDIX  663 

Article  4th.  All  trials  of  officers  or  of  privates  for  misconduct  shall 
be  by  a  jury  of  Twelve  chosen  by  a  majority  of  members  of  com 
pany  or  companies  as  the  case  may  be.  each  Company  shall  try 
its  own  members. 

Article  5th.  All  valuable  property  taken  by  honorable  warfare 
from  the  enemy,  shall  be  held  as  the  property  of  the  whole  com 
pany  or  companies  as  the  case  may  be  equally,  without  distinc- 

I  tion ;  to  be  used  for  the  common  benefit,  or  be  placed  in  the  hands 
of  responsible  agents  for  sale :  the  proceeds  to  be  divided  as  nearly 
equally  amongst  the  company  or  companies  capturing  it  as  may 
be.  except  that  no  person  shall  be  entitled  to  any  dividend  from 
property  taken  *  before  he  entered  the  service ;  and  any  person 
guilty  of  desertion,  or  convicted  of  gross  violations  of  his  obliga 
tions  to  those  with  whom  he  should  act,  whether  officer  or  private, 
shall  forfeit  his  interest  in  all  dividends  made  after  such  miscon 
duct  has  occurred. 

Article  6th.  All  property  captured  shall  be  delivered  to  the  re 
ceiver  of  the  force  or  company,  as  the  case  may  be ;  whose  duty  it 
shall  be  to  make  a  full  inventory  of  the  same  (assisted  by  such 
person,  or  persons  as  may  be  chosen  for  that  purpose),  a  copy  of 
which  shall  be  made  into  the  books  of  this  organization  and  held 
subject  to  examination  by  any  member,  on  all  suitable  occasions. 

Article  7th.  The  Receiver  shall  give  his  receipts  in  a  book  for  that 
purpose  for  all  moneys  &  other  property  of  the  Regulars  placed  in 
his  hands  and  keep  an  inventory  of  the  same  and  make  copy  as 
provided  in  Article  VI. 

Article  8th.  Captured  articles  when  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  mem 
bers  shall  be  receipted  for  by  the  Commissary  the  same  as  moneyes 
placed  in  his  hands,  the  receivers  to  hold  said  receipts. 

Article  9th.  A  disorderly  retreat  shall  not  be  suffered  at  any  time 
and  every  officer  and  private,  be,  and  is  by  this  article  fully  em 
powered  to  prevent  the  same  by  force  if  need  be,  &  any  attempt 
at  leaving  the  ground  be  and  during  a  fight  is  hereby  declared 
disorderly,  unless  the  consent  or  direction  of  the  officer  then  in 
command  have  authorized  the  same. 

Article  loth.  A  disorderly  attack  or  charge  shall  not  be  suffered  at 
any  time. 

Article  nth.  When  in  camp  a  thorough  watch  both  regular  and 
picket  shall  be  maintained  both  by  day  and  by  night,  and  visitors 
shall  not  be  suffered  to  pass  or  repass  without  leave  from  the 
Captain  of  the  Guard  and  under  common  or  ordinary  circum 
stances  it  is  expected  that  the  Officers  will  cheerfully  share  this 
service  with  the  privates  for  examples  sake. 

Article  1 2th.  Keeping  up  fires  or  lights  after  dark,  or  firing  of  guns 
pistols  or  caps,  or  boisterous  talking  while  in  camp  shall  not  be 
allowed  except  for  fires  and  lights  when  unavoidable. 

T  *  As  far  as  the  word  "taken,"  the  document  is  written  in  John  Brown's  hand, 
as  is  Article  23 ;  the  remainder  is  in  another  chirography. 


664  APPENDIX 

Article  1 3th.  When  in  camp  neither  officers  nor  privates  shall  be 
allowed  to  leave  without  consent  of  the  Officer  then  in  command. 

Article  I4th.  All  uncivil,  ungentlemanly,  profane,  vulgar  talk  or 
conversation  shall  be  discountenanced. 

Article  1 5th.  All  acts  of  petty  theft  needless  waste  of  property  of 
the  members  or  of  citizens  is  hereby  declared  disorderly,  together 
with  all  uncivil  and  unkind  treatment  of  citizens  or  of  prisoners. 

Article  i6th.  In  all  cases  of  capturing  property,  a  sufficient  number 
of  men  shall  be  detailed  to  take  charge  of  the  same,  all  others 
shall  keep  in  their  position. 

Article  1 7th.  It  shall  at  all  times  be  the  duty  of  the  Quarter  master 
to  select  ground  for  encampment  subject  however  to  the  appro 
bation  of  the  commanding  officer. 

Article  i8th.  The  Commissary  shall  give  receipts  in  a  book  for 
that  purpose,  for  all  moneys  provisions,  and  stores  put  into  his 
hands. 

Article  iQth.  The  Officers  of  Companies  shall  see  that  the  arms  of 
the  same  are  in  constant  good  order  and  a  neglect  of  this  duty  shall 
be  deemed  disorderly. 

Article  2Oth.  No  person  after  having  first  surrendered  himself  a 
prisoner  shall  be  put  to  death  or  subjected  to  corporeal  punish 
ment,  without  first  having  had  the  benefit  of  an  impartial  trial. 

Article  2 1  st.  A  wagon  master  and  an  assistant  shall  be  chosen  for 
each  Company  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  take  a  general  oversight 

:  and  care  of  the  teams,  wagons,  harness  and  all  other  articles  of 
property  pertaining  thereto:  and  who  shall  both  be  exempt  from 
serving  on  guard. 

Article  22d.  The  ordinary  use,  or  introduction  into  the  camp  of 
any  intoxicating  liquors,  as  a  beverage:  is  hereby  declared  dis 
orderly. 

Article  23d.  A  majority  of  Two  thirds  of  all  the  Members  may  at 
any  time  alter  or  amend  the  foregoing  articles. 

Most  of  John  Brown's  recruits  had  served  with  the  Lawrence 
Stubbs,  among  them  Luke  F.  Parsons.  W.  H.  Leeman,  whose  name 
appears  on  the  list,  stuck  to  his  new  commander  until  his  death  at 
Harper's  Ferry. 


JOHN    BROWN  S    REQUISITION    UPON    THE    NATIONAL    KANSAS    COM 
MITTEE  FOR  AN  OUTFIT  FOR  HIS  PROPOSED  COMPANY.   January,  1857 

"Memorandum  of  articles  wanted  as  an  Outfit  for  Fifty  Volun 
teers  to  serve  under  my  direction  during  the  Kansas  war:  or  for  such 
specified  time  as  they  may  each  enlist  for :  together  with  estimated 
cost  of  same  delivered  in  Lawrence  or  Topeka."  —  John  Brown 
MSS.  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 


APPENDIX  665 

2  substantial  (but  not  heavy)  baggage  Waggons 

with  good  covers $200.00 

4  good  serviceable  waggon  Horses 400. 

2  sets  strong  plain  Harness 50. 

IOO  good  Heavy  Blankets  say  @  2.  or  2.50  ....  200. 

8  Substantial  larg  sized  Tents     .     .     . ,'  .  •  .     .     .  100. 

8  large  Camp  Kettles .     .     .  ,     <I2. 

50  Tin  Basons    ..:.'.' 5. 

50  Iron  Spoons f     2. 

4  plain  strong  Saddles  &  Bridles 80. 

4  Picket  Ropes  &  Pins 3. 

8  Wooden  Pails 2. 

8  Axes  &  Helves 12. 

/  8  Frying  Pans  (large  size) 8. 

8  Large  sized  Coffee  Pots 10. 

8     do       do    Spiders  or  bake  Ovens 10. 

8     do       do    Tin  Pans 6. 

12  Spades  &  Shovels I    18. 

6  Mattocks 6. 

2  Weeks  provisions  for  Men  &  Horses      ....  150. 

Fund  for  Horse  hire  &  feed,  loss  &  damage  of  same  500. 

$1774- 
D 
JOHN  BROWN'S  PEACE  AGREEMENT 

Peace  Agreement  drafted  by  John  Brown  and  presented  to  the 
meeting  at  Sugar  Mound,  Linn  County,  Kansas,  by  Captain  Mont 
gomery  for  John  Brown. —  From  the  Lawrence  Republican,  Decem 
ber  16,  1858. 

Agreement. 

The  citizens  of  Linn  County,  assembled  in  mass  meeting  at 
Mound  City,  being  greatly  desirous  of  securing  a  permanent  peace 
to  the  people  of  the  Territory  generally,  and  to  those  along  the 
border  of  Missouri  in  particular,  have  this  day  entered  into  the  fol 
lowing  agreement  and  understanding,  for  our  future  guidance  and 
action,  viz: 

Article  i.  All  criminal  processes,  against  any  and  all  Free-State 
men,  for  any  action  of  theirs  previous  to  this  date,  growing  out  of 
difficulties  heretofore  existing  between  the  Free-State  and  Pro- 
Slavery  parties,  shall  be  forever  discontinued  and  quashed. 

Art.  2.  All  Free-State  men  held  in  confinement  for  any  charges 
against  them,  on  account  of  former  difficulties,  between  the  Free 
State  and  Pro-Slavery  parties,  to  be  immediately  released  and 
discharged. 


666  APPENDIX 

i) 

Art.  3.  All  Pro-Slavery  men,  known  to  have  been  actively  and 
criminally  engaged  in  the  former  political  difficulties  of  the  Terri 
tory,  and  who  have  been  forcibly  expelled,  shall  be  compelled  to 
remain  away,  as  a  punishment  for  their  oft  repeated  and  aggravated 
crimes. 

Art.  4.  No  troops,  marshal  or  other  officers  of  the  General  Gov 
ernment,  shall  be  either  sent  or  called  in  to  enforce  or  serve  criminal 
processes  against  any  Free-State  man  or  men,  on  account  of  troubles 
heretofore  existing,  for  any  act  prior  to  this  date. 

Art.  5.  All  parties  shall  hereafter  in  good  faith  discontinue,  and 
thoroughly  discountenance  acts  of  robbery,  theft  or  violence  against 
others,  on  account  of  their  political  differences. 

The  following  recommendation  was  unanimously  agreed  to  by 
the  meeting:  "That  we  earnestly  recommend  that  all  those  who 
have  recently  taken  money  or  other  property  from  peaceable  citizens 
within  this  county,  immediately  restore  the  same  to  their  property 
owners."  The  meeting  then  adjourned  peaceably. 

A  variation  of  this  agreement  less  offensive  to  the  Pro-Slavery 
men  than  Articles  2  and  3  of  the  above  form  is  also  preserved ;  it  was 
drawn  late  in  December  in  order  to  obtain  the  signatures  of  men  of 
all  parties.  It  begins:  "We  the  citizens  of  Kansas  and  Missouri," 
and  bears  date  of  January  I.  This  will  be  found  in  William  Hutchin- 
son's  letter  in  the  New  York  Times  of  January  18, 1859,  from  Maple- 
ton,  Kansas,  January  3. 

E 

SHUBEL  MORGAN'S  COMPANY 

'  Articles  of  Agreement  of  Shubel  Morgan's  Company,  drawn  up  in 
July,  1858,  in  Kagi's  writing.  —  Original  in  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

We  the  undersigned,  members  of  Shubel  Morgan's  Company, 
hereby  agree  to  be  governed  by  the  following  Rules :  — 

I.  A  gentlemanly  and  respectful  deportment  shall  at  all  times 
and  places  be  maintained  toward  all  persons;  and  all  profane  or 
indecent  language  shall  be  avoided  in  all  cases. 

ii.  No  intoxicating  drinks  shall  be  used  as  a  beverage  by  any 
member,  or  be  suffered  in  camp  for  such  purpose. 

in.  No  member  shall  leave  camp  without  leave  "of  the  com 
mander.  £  /' 

iv.  All  property  captured  in  any  manner  shall  be  subjected  to 
an  equal  distribution  among  the  members. 

v.  All  acts  of  petty  or  other  thefts  shall  be  promptly  and  properly 
punished,  and  restitution  made  as  far  as  possible. 

vi.  All  members  shall,  so  far  as  able,  contribute  equally  to  all 
necessary  labor  in  or  out  of  camp.  * 


APPENDIX  667 

VII.  All  prisoners  who  shall  properly  demean  themselves  shall  be 
treated  with  kindness  and  respect,  and  shall  be  punished  for  crime 
only  after  trial  and  conviction,  being  allowed  a  hearing  in  defence. 

vin.  Implicit  obedience  shall  be  yielded  to  all  proper  orders  of 
the  commander  or  other  superior  officers.  ^ 

ix.  All  arms,  ammunition,  etc.,  not  strictly  private  property, 
shall  ever  be  held  subject  to,  and  delivered  up  on,  the  order  of  the 
commander. 

Names  Date,  1858 

Shubel  Morgan  July  12 

C.  P.  Tidd  "     " 

J.  H.  Kagi 
A.  Wattles 
Saml  Stevenson 
J.  Montgomery 
T.  Homyer 

Simon  Snyder  "     14 

E.  W.  Snyder  "     15 

Elias  J.  Snyder  "      " 

John  H.  Snyder 
Adam  Bishop 
William  Hairgrove 
John  Mikel 
Wm.  Partridge  "      " 


JOHN  BROWN  S  WILLS 

While  in  the  hospitable  home  of  Judge  Thomas  Russell,  "near 
Boston,  on  April  13,  1858,  John  Brown  signed  a  will,  that  he  might 
duly  protect  those  who  had  placed  funds  and  other  property  in 
his  possession  for  particular  purposes.  It  is  still  preserved  in  the 
G.  L.  Stearns  papers,  and  reads  thus: 

"I,  John  Brown  of  North  Elba,  New  York,  intending  to  visit 
Kansas,  and  knowing  the  uncertainty  of  life,  make  my  last  will  as 
follows :  I  give  and  bequeath  all  trust  funds  and  personal  property 
for  the  aid  of  the  Free-State  cause  in  Kansas  now  in  my  hands  or  in 
the  hands  of  W.  H.  D.  Callender  of  Hartford,  Conn,  to  George  L. 
Stearns  of  Medford,  Mass.,  Samuel  Cabot,  Jr.  of  Boston,  Mass,  and 
William  H  Russell  of  New  Haven,  Conn.,  to  them  and  the  survivor 
or  survivors,  and  their  assigns  forever,  in  trust  that  they  will  ad 
minister  said  funds  and  other  property  including  all  now  collected 
by  me  or  in  my  behalf,  for  the  aid  of  the  free-state  cause  in  Kansas, 
leaving  the  manner  of  so  doing  entirely  to  their  discretion." 


668  APPENDIX 

Another  will  dated  one  day  later,  is  also  extant,  in  the  papers  of 
Judge  Thomas  Russell,  Jamaica  Plain,  Mass.  This  is  signed  by  but 
one  witness,  the  one  above  cited  having  three.  While  differently 
phrased,  the  documents  are  alike  in  substance. 

Another  will,  written  in  prison  on  the  day  before  his  execution, 
was  as  follows: 

CHARLESTOWN,  JEFFERSON  Co,  VA.  ist  December  1859 

I  give  to  my  Son  John  Brown  Jr  my  Surveyors  Compass  &  other 
surveyors  articles  if  found  also  my  old  Granite  Monument  now  at 
North  Elba,  N.  Y.  to  receive  upon  its  Two  sides  a  further  inscrip 
tion  as  I  will  hereafter  direct.  Said  Stone  monument  however  to 
remain  at  North  Elba,  so  long  as  any  of  my  children  or  my  wife:  may 
remain  there ;  as  residents. 

I  give  to  my  Son  Jason  Brown  my  Silver  Watch  with  my  name 
egraved  on  iner  case. 

I  give  to  my  Son  Owen  Brown  my  double  Spry  or  opera  Glass 
&  my  Rifle  Gun  (if  found)  presented  to  me  at  Worcester  Mass 
It  is  Globe  sighted  &  new.  I  give  also  to  the  same  Son  Fifty  Dollars 
in  cash  to  be  paid  him  from  the  proceeds  of  my  Fathers  Estate  in 
consideration  of  his  terible  sufferings  in  Kansas:  &  his  cripled  condi 
tion  from  his  childhood. 

I  give  to  my  Son  Salmon  Brown  Fifty  Dollars  in  cash  to  be  paid 
him  from  my  Fathers  Estate,  as  an  offset  to  the  first  Two  cases 
above  named. 

I  give  to  my  Daughter  Ruth  Thompson  my  large  old  Bible  con 
taining  family  record. 

I  give  each  of  my  sons  and  to  each  of  my  other  daughters  in  Law ; 
as  good  a  coppy  of  the  Bible  as  can  be  purchased  at  some  Book  store 
in  New  York  or  Boston  at  a  cost  of  Five  Dollars  each ;  in  Cash  to  be 
paid  out  of  the  proceeds  of  my  Fathers  Estate. 

I  give  to  each  of  my  Grand  Children  that  may  be  living  when  my 
Fathers  Estate  is  settled :  as  good  a  copy  of  the  Bible  as  can  be  pur 
chased  (as  above)  at  a  cost  of  $3,  Three  Dollars  each 

All  the  Bibles  to  be  purchased  at  one  and  the  same  time  for  Cash 
on  best  terms. 

I  desire  to  have  $50,  Fifty  Dollars  each  paid  out  of  the  final  pro 
ceeds  of  my  Fathers  Estate :  to  the  following  named  persons.  To  wit 
to  Allen  Hammond,  Esqr  of  Rockville  Tolland  Co,  Connecticut,  or 
to  George  Kellogg  Esqr:  former  Agent  of  the  New  England  Com 
pany  at  that  place :  for  the  use;  &  benefit  of  that  Company.  Also  Fifty 
Dollars  to  Silas  Havens  formerly  of  Irvinsburg,  Summit  Co,  Ohio, 
if  he  can  be  found.  Also  Fifty  Dollars  to  a  man  formerly  of  Stark  Co, 
Ohio,  at  Canton  who  sued  my  Father  in  his  lifetime  Through  Judge 
Humphrey  &  Mr.  Upson  of  Akron  to  be  paid  by  J.  R.  Brown  to 
the  man  in  person  if  can  be  found  His  name  I  cannot  remember 
My  father  made  a  compromise  with  the  man  by  turning  out  House 
&  Lot  at  Monroeville.  I  desire  that  any  remaining  balance  that  may 
become  my  due  from  my  Fathers  Estate  may  be  paid  in  equal 


APPENDIX  669 

amounts  to  my  Wife  &  to  each  of  my  Children ;  &  to  the  Widows  of 
Watson  &  Oliver  Brown  by  my  brother  Jeremiah  R.  Brown  of  Hud 
son  Ohio  JOHN   BROWN  * 
Witnes 

JOHN  Avis 

Endorsed, 

"  Copy  to  be  sent  to  Jeremiah  R.  Brown." 

THE  WILL   OF   DECEMBER  2,    1859 

[Will  Book  No.  1 6,  Page  143,  Jefferson  Co.  West  Virginia  Court  Records, 
Charlestown.] 

John  Brown's  Will  &  Codicil 

I,  John  Brown,  a  prisoner  now  in  the  prison  of  Charlestown, 
Jefferson  County,  Virginia,  do  hereby  make  and  ordain  this  as  my 
true  last  Will  and  Testament.  I  will  and  direct  that  all  my  property, 
being  personal  property,  which  is  scattered  about  in  the  States  of 
Virginia  and  Maryland,  should  be  carefully  gathered  up  by  my 
Executor  hereinafter  appointed  and  disposed  of  to  the  best  advan 
tage,  and  the  proceeds  thereof  paid  over  to  my  beloved  wife,  Mary 
A.  Brown.  Many  of  these  articles  are  not  of  a  war  like  character, 
and  I  trust  as  to  such  and  all  other  property  that  I  may  be  entitled 
to  that  my  rights  and  the  rights  of  my  family  may  be  respected: 
And  lastly,  I  hereby  appoint  Sheriff  James  W.  Campbell,  Executor 
of  this  my  true  last  Will,  hereby  revoking  all  others. 

Witness  my  hand  and  seal  this  2nd  day  of  December  1859 

JOHN  BROWN  (Seal) 

Signed,  sealed  and  declared  to  be 
the  true  last  Will  of  John 
Brown,  in  our  presence,  who 
attested  the  same  at  his  request, 
in  his  presence  and  in  the  presence  of 
each  other. 

JOHN  Avis 

ANDREW  HUNTER 

Codicil.  I  wish  my  friends,  James  W.  Campbell,  Sheriff,  and  John 
Avis,  Jailer,  as  a  return  for  their  kindness,  each  to  have  a  Sharp-rifle 
of  those  belonging  to  me,  or  if  no  rifle  can  be  had,  then  each  a  pistol. 

Witness  my  hand  and  seal  this  2nd  day  of  December  1859 

JOHN  BROWN    (Seal) 

Signed,  sealed  and  declared  to  be 

a  codicil  to  the  last  Will  and  testament 

of  John  Brown,  in  our  presence,  who  attested 

the  same  at  his  request  in  his  presence,  and 

in  the  presence  of  each  other. 

ANDREW  HUNTER, 

JOHN  Avis. 

•  Every  word  of  this,  except  Avis's  signature,  in  John  Brown's  own  hand. 


670  APPENDIX 

VIRGINIA,  JEFFERSON  COUNTY,  Scr.;  In  the  County  Court,  Deer.  Term,  1859. 

At  a  Court  held  for  the  said  County  on  the  igth  day  of  December,  1859,  the 
foregoing  last  Will  and  Testament  and  Codicil  thereto,  of  John  Brown  deceased, 
approved  in  open  Court  by  the  oaths  of  John  Avis,  and  Andrew  Hunter  sub 
scribing  witnesses  thereto,  and  ordered  to  be  recorded. 

Teste  T.  A.  MOORE,  Clerk. 


JOHN  AVIS'S  AFFIDAVIT  AS  TO  HIS  ASSOCIATION  WITH  JOHN  BROWN 

(From  Original  owned  by  Rev.  Abner  C.  Hopkins,  D.  D.,  Charlestown,  W.  Va.) 

I,  John  Avis,  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  of  the  County  of  Jefferson, 
State  of  West  Virginia,  under  oath  do  solemnly  declare  that  I  was 
Deputy  Sheriff  and  Jailor  of  Jefferson  County,  Virginia,  in  1859 
during  the  whole  time  that  Captain  John  Brown  was  in  prison  &  on 
trial  for  his  conduct  in  what  is  familiarly  known  as  the  Harper's 
Ferry  Raid ;  that  I  was  with  him  daily  during  the  whole  period ;  that 
the  personal  relations  between  him  and  me  were  of  the  most  pleasant 
character;  that  Sheriff  James  W.  Campbell  &  I  escorted  him  from 
his  cell  the  morning  of  his  execution  one  on  either  side  of  him ;  that 
Sheriff  Campbell  &  I  rode  with  Captain  Brown  in  a  wagon  from 
the  jail  to  the  scaffold  one  on  either  side ;  that  I  heard  every  word  that 
Captain  Brown  spoke  from  the  time  he  left  the  jail  till  his  death; 
that  Sheriff  Campbell  (now  deceased)  and  I  were  the  only  persons 
with  him  on  the  scaffold. 

I  have  this  day  read,  in  the  early  part  of  chapter  8  of  a  book 
styled  'The  Manliness  of  Christ,'  by  Thomas  Hughes,  Q.  C.,  New 
York:  American  Book  Exchange,  Tribune  Building,  1880,  the  fol 
lowing  paragraph,  to  wit:  — 

"Now  I  freely  admit  that  there  is  no  recorded  end  of  a  life  that  I 
know  of  more  entirely  brave  and  manly  than  the  one  of  Captain 
John  Brown,  of  which  we  know  every  minutest  detail,  as  it  hap 
pened  in  the  full  glare  of  our  northern  life  not  twenty  years  ago. 
About  that  I  think  there  could  scarcely  be  disagreement  anywhere. 
The  very  men  who  allowed  him  to  lie  in  his  bloody  clothes  till  the 
day  of  his  execution,  &  then  hanged  him,  recognize  this.  'You  are  a 
game  man,  Capt.  Brown,'  the  Southern  Sheriff  said  in  the  wagon. 
'  Yes,'  he  answered,  '  I  was  so  brought  up.  It  was  one  of  my  Mother's 
lessons.  From  infancy  I  have  not  suffered  from  physical  fear.  I  have 
suffered  a  thousand  times  more  from  bashfulness;'  and  then  he 
kissed  a  negro  child  in  its  mother's  arms,  and  walked  cheerfully  on 
to  the  scaffold,  thankful  that  he  was  'allowed  to  die  for  a  cause  and 
not  merely  to  pay  the  debt  of  nature  as  all  must.' " 

Respecting  the  statements  contained  in  the  above  paragraph 
quoted  from  the  book  above  mentioned,  I  solemnly  declare:  — 

First,  that  Captain  John  Brown  was  not  "allowed  to  lie  in  his 


APPENDIX  671 

bloody  clothes  till  the  day  of  his  execution,"  but  that  he  was  fur 
nished  with  a  change  of  clothing  as  promptly  as  prisoners  in  such 
condition  usually  are ;  that  he  was  allowed  all  the  clothing  he  desired ; 
and  that  his  washing  was  done  at  his  will  without  any  cost  to  himself. 
As  an  officer  charged  with  his  custody,  I  saw  that  he  was  at  all  times 
&  by  all  persons  treated  kindly,  properly  and  respectfully.  I  have 
no  recollection  that  there  was  ever  any  attempt  made  to  humiliate 
or  maltreat  him.  Captain  Brown  took  many  occasions  to  thank  me 
for  my  kindness  to  him  and  spoke  of  it  to  many  persons  including 
his  wife.  In  further  proof  of  the  kindness  he  received  at  my  hands  I 
will  state  that  Captain  Brown  in  his  last  written  will  &  testament 
bequeathed  to  me  his  Sharpe's  Rifle  and  a  pistol.  Furthermore,  on 
the  night  before  the  execution  Captain  Brown  and  his  wife,  upon 
my  invitation,  took  supper  with  me  and  my  family  at  our  table  in 
our  residence  which  was  a  part  of  the  jail  building. 

2.  I  have  no  recollection  that  the  Sheriff  said  to  Captain  Brown, 
"You  are  a  game  man,"  and  received  the  reply  quoted  in  the  above 
paragraph,  or  that  any  similar  remarks  were  made  by  either  parties. 
I  am  sure  that  neither  these  remarks  nor  any  like  them  were  made 
at  the  time.    The  only  remarks  made  by  Captain  Brown  between 
his  cell  and  the  scaffold  were  commonplace  remarks  about  the 
beauty  of  the  country  and  the  weather. 

3.  The  statement  that  "he  kissed  a  negro  child  in  his  mother's 
arms"  is  wholly  incorrect.   Nothing  of  the  sort  occurred.   Nothing 
of  the  sort  could  have  occurred,  for  his  hands,  as  usual  in  such  cases, 
were  confined  behind  him  before  he  left  the  jail;  he  was  between 
Sheriff  Campbell  and  me,  and  a  guard  of  soldiers  surrounded  him, 
and  allowed  no  person  to  come  between  them  and  the  prisoner, 
from  the  jail  to  the  scaffold,  except  his  escorts. 

4.  Respecting  the  statement  that  he  "walked  cheerfully  to  the 
scaffold,"  I  will  say  that  I  did  not  think  his  bearing  on  the  scaffold 
was  conspicuous  for  its  heroism,  yet  not  cowardly. 

5.  Whether  he  was  "thankful  that  he  was  allowed  to  die  for  a 
cause  and  not  merely  to  pay  the  debt  of  nature  as  all  must,"  or  not, 
I  cannot  say  what  was  in  his  heart;  but  if  this  clause  means,  as  the 
quotation  marks  would  indicate,  that  Captain  Brown  used  any  such 
language  or  said  anything  on  the  subject,  it  is  entirely  incorrect. 
Captain  Brown  said  nothing  like  it.  The  only  thing  that  he  did  say 
at  or  on  the  scaffold  was  to  take  leave  of  us  &  then  just  about  the 
time  the  noose  was  adjusted  he  said  to  me:  "Be  quick." 

(Signed)    JOHN  Avis    j 
CHARLESTOWN,  WEST  VIRGINIA, 
April  25,  1882. 

1    STATE  OF  WEST  VIRGINIA,  COUNTY  OF  JEFFERSON  ss: 

f  I,  Cleon  Moore,  a  notary  public  in  and  for  the  County  of  Jefferson,  State  afore 
said,  hereby  certify  that  John  Avis  whose  name  is  signed  to  the  foregoing  affidavit 
this  day  personally  appeared  before  me  in  my  county  aforesaid  and  made  oath 
that  the  statements  contained  in  said  affidavit  are  true  to  the  best  of  his  know 
ledge  and  belief. 


672 


APPENDIX 


Given  under  my  hand  and  notarial  seal  at  Charlestown,  West  Virginia,  this 
25th  day  of  April,  1882. 

CLEON  MOORE 
Notary  Public 

H 


A   CHRONOLOGY  OF  JOHN   BROWN'S  MOVEMENTS,   FROM   HIS  DE 
PARTURE  FOR   KANSAS  TO  HIS  DEATH,   DECEMBER  2,    1859 

1855 

August  13.   Left  North  Elba  with  Henry  Thompson  for 

Kansas. 

15.   At  Akron,  Ohio. 
At  Hudson,  Ohio."1 

1 8.  At  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

19.  At  Detroit. 

20.  Arrived  at  Chicago. 

23.  Left  Chicago  for  Kansas  with  his  one-horse 
wagon,  and  en  route  to  Osawatomie  until  Oc 
tober  6. 

October  7.   Arrived  at  Osawatomie  and  the  Brown  claims. 

December          6.   Left  Osawatomie  for  the  defence  of  Lawrence. 
7-12.   At  Lawrence. 

14.   At  the  Brown  claims  near  Osawatomie. 

1856 

January  I.   At  West  Point,  Missouri. 

4.    Back  at  Osawatomie. 
7  and  8.    Returned  to  Missouri  for  provisions. 

31.    Returned  to  Osawatomie  from  a  third  trip  to 

Missouri. 

Feb.  l-April    15.    In  Osawatomie  and  vicinity. 
April  1 6.   Attended  Osawatomie  settlers'  meeting  to  re 

solve  against  the  " bogus  law"  taxes. 

21.  Attended  Judge  Cato's  court  near  Lane. 
May                 22.   Left  Osawatomie  for  relief  of  Lawrence. 

23.  Left  camp  of  Pottawatomie  Rifles  and  camped 

one  mile  above  Dutch  Henry's  Crossing. 

24.  In  camp  all  day;  Pottawatomie  killings  at  night. 

25.  About  noon  left  camp,  rejoining  John  Brown, 

Jr.,  at  Ottawa  Jones's,  near  midnight. 

26.  Left  the  Pottawatomie  Rifles  and  spent  night 
at  Jason  Brown's  cabin. 

27-31.    In  a  secluded  camp  on  Ottawa  Creek. 
June  I.   Moved  to  Prairie  City;  searched  till  late  for 

Pate's  command. 
a.   Battle  of  Blackjack. 


APPENDIX 


673 


June 


June  5-July 
July 


3-4- 
5- 


4-22. 
23- 

August  3-4. 

7- 

9- 

10. 

10-16. 


20. 
24. 

25- 
26. 

27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 

August  31 

-September  6. 

September         7. 

8-14. 

15-22. 

October  I. 


10. 
18. 

35-26. 
27. 


Encamped  with   prisoners   at   Middle   Ottawa 

Creek. 
Brown's  men  disbanded  by  Colonel  E.  V.  Sum- 

ner,   First  U.  S.   Cavalry,   Major  Sedgwick, 

Lieutenant  J.  E.  B.  Stuart. 
Hidden  in  thickets  of  Middle  Ottawa  Creek  in 

vicinity  of  Palmyra. 

At  Lawrence;  camping  at  night  one  mile  south 
west  of  Big  Springs. 
Arrived  in  the  early  morning  on  outskirts  of 

Topeka. 
In  camp  on  Willets  farm,  on  Shunganung  Creek 

near  Topeka. 
Whereabouts  unknown. 
Probably  left  Topeka  for  Nebraska. 
Met  S.  J.  Reeder  on  his  way  to  Nemaha  Falls, 

N.  T. 

At  Nemaha  Falls. 
Left  Nebraska  City. 
Arrived  at  Topeka. 
Whereabouts  in  doubt. 
At  Lawrence  on  arrival  of  Walker's  prisoners 

from  Fort  Titus. 
(About)  Reached  Osawatomie. 
Brown's  and  Cline's  companies  in  camp  at  Sugar 

Creek,  Linn  County. 
Searched  for  a  pro-slavery  force. 
Encounter  with  Cline's  company ;  raid  on  Captain 

J.  E.  Brown. 
Raiding. 

Returned  to  Osawatomie  with  150  head  of  cattle. 
Moved  his  camp  one  mile  from  Osawatomie. 
Battle  of  Osawatomie. 
In  camp  at  Hauser  farm,  two  and  one-half  miles 

from  Osawatomie. 

Arrived  in  Lawrence  with  Luke  F.  Parsons. 
In  Lawrence. 
At  Augustus  Wattles's  home  near  Lawrence, 

"with  his  sons  and  sons'  wives." 
At  Osawatomie,  according  to  his  letter  of  Octo 
ber  n,  1856. 
Narrowly   escaped    capture   by   Lieut. -Colonel 

Cooke  near  Nebraska  City. 
At  Tabor,  Iowa. 

(About)  Left  Tabor  by  stage  for  Chicago. 
At  Chicago. 
(About)  Started  back. to  Tabor  in  pursuit  of  his 

sons  Salmon  and  Watson. 


674  APPENDIX 

December          I.   Again  in  Chicago;  left  soon  to  visit  Ohio  relatives; 
then  went  to  Albany,  Rochester   and  Peter- 
boro. 
27.   At  Frederick  Douglass's  in  Rochester. 


January 


4-22. 
23-26. 


January  27 

-February  16. 

February    16-18. 

19. 

March  i. 

4- 

6. 
I- 

12. 


19- 

21-26. 
26-28. 

30. 

Mar.  3i-April   2. 
April  6-15. 

16-20. 
23- 
25- 
27. 
28. 

April3O-May  12. 

May  13. 

14. 
15- 

21. 
22. 
23- 

May  87-June  12. 
June  1  6. 

22. 

24. 
29. 


1857 

At  Boston. 

In  New  York  at  meeting  of  National  Kansas 

Committee. 
Visited  Rochester,  Peterboro  and  North  Elba, 

and  returned  to  Boston. 
Boston. 

Springfield,  Mass. 
Collinsville,  Conn.;  first  meeting  with  Blair  to 

contract  for  pikes. 
Brown's  Appeal  to  Friends  of  Freedom  appeared 

in  New  York  Tribune. 
At  Hartford,  Conn.,  and  Springfield,  Mass. 
Canton  and  Collinsville,  Conn. 
Passed  this  night  with  R.  W.  Emerson  at  Con 
cord. 

At  Medford  with  George  L.  Stearns  and  family. 
At  New  Haven,  Conn. 

At  Worcester  (also  brief  trip  to  Springfield)* 
Visiting   ex-Governor   Reeder   at   Easton,    Pa., 

with  Sanborn  and  Conway. 
Contracted  with  Blair  at  Collinsville  for  pikes. 
At  Springfield,  Mass. 
In  Boston  and  West  Newton ;  visiting  Judge  and 

Mrs.  Russell. 

In  Springfield  and  vicinity. 
In  New  Haven,  Conn. 
In  Springfield,  Mass. 
In  Troy,  New  York. 
In  Albany,  New  York. 
At  North  Elba. 

Left  Vergennes,  Vermont,  for  Kansas. 
At  Canastota,  New  York. 
At  Peterboro,  New  York. 
At  Wayne,  Ohio. 
At  Cleveland,  Ohio. 
At  Akron,  Ohio. 

At  Hudson,  Ohio;  disabled  by  sickness. 
In  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin. 
Parted  from  Gerrit  Smith  in  Chicago. 
At  Tallmadge,  Ohio. 
Left  Cleveland  for  Iowa. 


APPENDIX 


675 


July  5-6. 

July  7-Aug.  6. 
Aug.  7~Nov.  i. 
November  ,  2. 

5- 

6. 

14-16. 


December 


18. 

22. 
4- 
25- 

28  or  29. 


January  15. 

21. 

Jan.  28-Feb.  17. 
February  18-24. 
Feb.  26-Mar.  3. 
March  4-7. 

8. 

9-16. 
18. 
19. 

23- 

Mar.  23-April    i. 

April  2. 

3- 

4-7- 
8-12. 

13. 

14. 

16. 

17-24. 

25- 

26. 

27. 

28. 

29. 

April  30-May  29. 
May  8  and  9. 

29. 


June 


1-3. 


Iowa  City. 

Crossing  Iowa. 

At  Tabor. 

Left  Tabor,  parting  from  Forbes  at  Nebraska 
City. 

Arrived  at  Whitman's  farm  near  Lawrence. 

In  consultation  with  Cook. 

At  Topeka,  with  Cook,  Realf,  Parsons,  and  Ste 
vens. 

Left  Topeka. 

En  route  to  Nebraska  City. 

(About)  Arrived  at  Tabor,  Iowa. 

Left  Tabor  for  Springdale. 

Passed  Marengo,  Iowa. 

Arrived  at  Springdale. 

1858 

Left  Springdale  for  East. 

At  Lindenville,  Ohio. 

At  Frederick  Douglass's  in  Rochester. 

At  Peterboro. 

With  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  N.  Gloucester  at  Brooklyn. 

At  Boston. 

Left  Boston  for  Philadelphia. 

At  Philadelphia. 

At  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Left  New  Haven  for  New  York.' 

Arrived  at  North  Elba. 

At  North  Elba. 

At  Peterboro. 

Left  Peterboro  for  Rochester. 

At  Rochester. 

At  St.  Catherine's,  Canada. 

In  Canada  West. 

At  St.  Catherine's. 

At  Ingersoll,  Canada  West. 

In  Canada  West. 

Passed  through  Chicago;  arrived  in  Springdale. 

At  Springdale. 

Left  Springdale  at  11.45  A.  M. 

Arrived  at  Chicago. 

Reached  Detroit  and  Chatham,  Canada. 

At  Chatham. 

Two  conventions  met. 

Left  Chatham. 

Arrived  at  Boston. 

At  Boston. 


676  APPENDIX 

June  3.   Left  Boston  for  Kansas,  via  North  Elba  and 

Ohio. 

5.    (About)  At  North  Elba. 
20.   Left  Cleveland  with  Tidd  and  Kagi. 

22.  At  Chicago. 

26.  Reached  Lawrence,  Kansas. 

27-28.  At  Lawrence. 

28.  Left  Lawrence  for  southern  Kansas. 

July  i.  On  the  Snyder  Claim  for  a  four  weeks'  stay. 

9.  Visited  James  Montgomery's  cabin. 

23.  Ill  of  ague. 

August  3-9.   At    Augustus   Wattles's    home    near    Moneka, 

Kansas. 

15.    (About)  Taken  to  Rev.  Mr.  Adair's,  at  Osawa 
tomie,  ill  of  fever. 

In  Lawrence. 

At  Ottumwa,  Kansas. 

At  Osawatomie. 

At  Lawrence. 

At  Osawatomie. 

At  Augustus  Wattles's. 

Building  the  Montgomery  fort  during  this  month. 

Marched  with  Montgomery  to  Paris,  Kansas. 

Left  Snyder  Claim  with  George  Gill  for  Osawat 
omie. 

Attempt  of  Captain  Weaver  and  Sheriff  Me  Dan 
iel  to  capture  Brown  at  Snyder  Claim;  the 
latter  arrived  at  Osawatomie. 

At  Osawatomie. 

Returned  to  Montgomery's  fort  with  George  Gill. 

Drafted  agreement  presented  to  peace  meeting 
at  Sugar  Mound  by  Montgomery. 

At  Sugar  Creek  during  Montgomery's  attack  on 
Fort  Scott. 

At  Wimsett  Farm  of  Jeremiah  G.  Anderson's 
brother. 

The  raid  into  Missouri. 

Camped  all  day  in  a  deep  ravine. 

Reached  Augustus  Wattles's  house. 

At  Wattles's  or  in  the  neighborhood,  ready  to 
repel  invasion  from  Missouri. 

At  Wattles's  with  William  Hutchinson. 

1859 

January  I.   Went  into  camp  on  Turkey  Creek. 

2.   Wrote  Montgomery  asking  him  to  be  ready  to 
fight. 


September       23. 

October  7. 

ii. 

15-16. 

22-25. 

Oct.  30-Nov.  i. 
November. 

13- 

December          i . 

2. 


3- 
5- 
6. 

16. 

16-18. 
20. 

21. 

22. 

22-30. 

30-31. 


APPENDIX 


677 


January 


s! 

10-20. 
20. 

24. 

25- 
28. 
29. 
30. 


February 


4- 

5-i  I- 
ii. 

12. 

13- 
14. 

15- 

16. 

17- 

18. 

19. 
20. 

21-22. 
24. 
25- 

Feb.  25-Mar.     9. 
March  9. 

10. 

n. 

12. 

12-14. 
15-24- 

25- 

26. 

27. 

28. 
April  7. 

10. 

11-13- 

14. 

16. 

April  i9~May    5. 


(About)  Visited  by  George  A.  Crawford,  agent 
for  the  Governor  and  President  Buchanan. 

Wrote  his  "  Parallels"  at  Augustus  Wattles's. 

Left  Wattles's  for  the  last  time. 

At  Osawatomie. 

With  George  Gill  left  Garnett,  Kansas,  for  Law 
rence,  with  the  fugitive  slaves. 

Reached  Major  J.  B.  Abbott's,  near  Lawrence. 

Left  Lawrence  going  North  with  the  slaves. 

At  Hoi  ton. 

At  Straight  or  Spring  Creek. 

Resting  at  Spring  Creek. 

"Battle  of  the  Spurs;"  reached  Sabetha. 

Brown's  last  day  in  Kansas.  Crossed  Nemeha 
River;  entered  Nebraska. 

Crossed  the  Missouri  River  at  Nebraska  City. 

At  Tabor. 

Left  Tabor  to  cross  Iowa. 

At  Toole's. 

At  Lewis  Mills's  house. 

At  Porter's  Tavern,  Grove  City. 

At  Dalmanutha. 

At  Mr.  Murray's,  Aurora. 

At  Mr.  James  J.  Jordan's. 

Passed  through  Des  Moines;  at  Mr.   Hawley's. 

At  Dickerson's. 

Reached  Grinnell. 

At  Grinnell. 

Passed  through  Iowa  City. 

Arrived  at  Springdale. 

At  Springdale. 

Left  Springdale  for  West  Liberty.  ^ 

Left  West  Liberty  by  train  for  Chicago. 

Arrived  at  Chicago. 

Arrived  at  Detroit;  saw  his  slaves  ferried  over 
to  Windsor. 

At  Detroit. 

At  Cleveland. 

In  Ash  tabula  Co.,  Ohio. 

At  Jefferson,  Ohio. 

Lectured  at  Jefferson,  Ohio. 

At  Cleveland. 

At  Kingsville,  Ohio, 

At  Rochester. 

At  Peterboro. 

Left  Peterboro  for  North  Elba. 

At  Westport,  New  York. 

At  North  Elba. 


678  APPENDIX 

May  7.  With  F.  B.  Sanborn  at  Concord. 

8.  Spoke  in  Concord  Town  Hall. 

9.  At  Concord  and  Boston. 
May  lo-june    2.  At  Boston. 

June  3.   Left  Boston ;  arrived  in  Collinsville,  Conn. 

4.    Reached  New  York. 
5-6.    In  New  York. 
7.   At  Troy. 

9.   At  Keene,  New  York. 
10.   At  Westport. 
1 6.    (Probably)  Left  North  Elba  for  last  time. 

1 8.  At  West  Andover,  Ohio. 

19.  Left  West  Andover. 

23.   Akron,  Ohio,  and  Pittsburg,  Pa. 
23-27.   Bedford  Springs,  Bedford  Co.,  Pa. 
27-28.    At  Chambersburg. 

30.    Left  Chambersburg;  spent  night  at  Hagerstown, 

Md. 

At  Sandy  Hook,  Md.  (Harper's  Ferry). 
(About)  Moved  to  Kennedy  Farm. 
At  Chambersburg  with  Frederick  Douglass. 
At  Chambersburg,  en  route  to  Philadelphia. 
On  his  way  back  through  Harrisburg. 
At  Chambersburg. 
At  Chambersburg. 
(Sunday)  Raid  began. 
'17.    In  battle  at  Harper's  Ferry. 

1 8.  Captured  at  daybreak. 

19.  Taken  to  Charlestown  jail. 
25.   Trial  begun. 

November         2.   Sentenced. 
December          2.   Executed. 


July  3- 

12. 

August        1 6-2 1. 
September       27. 

30- 

October  i. 

8. 

16. 


JOHN  BROWN'S  MEN-AT-ARMS 

^  John  Brown's  band  consisted  of  twenty-one  men  besides  himself, 
sixteen  of  whom  were  white  and  five  colored.  Most  of  the  whites  he 
commissioned  as  officers  in  his  army;  according  to  the  best  obtain 
able  printed  list,  Stevens,  Cook,  Brown's  three  sons,  —  Oliver, 
Owen  and  Watson,  —  and  Tidd  were  captains.  But  this  is  incom 
plete. ^  There  is  conflicting  testimony  as  to  whether  Hazlett  was  a 
captain  or  a  lieutenant.  Cook  states  that  only  two  lieutenants  were 
commissioned,  Edwin  Coppoc  and  Dauphin  Thompson.  Colonel 
Lee  in  his  official  report  rates  Hazlett,  Edwin  Coppoc,  and  Leeman 
as  lieutenants.  A  captain's  commission  was  found  on  Leeman 's 


APPENDIX  679 

body.  Probably  William  Thompson  and  J.  G.  Anderson  were  also 
captains.  The  white  private  soldiers  were  Stewart  Taylor,  Barclay 
Coppoc,  and  F.  J.  Meriam.  The  colored  were  Shields  Green,  Lewis 
Sheridan  Leary,  John  A.  Copeland,  Jr.,  Osborn  Perry  Anderson, 
and  Dangerfield  Newby.  The  eldest  of  the  band  after  Brown  was 
Newby,  aged  forty-four;  Owen  Brown  came  next,  at  thirty-five;  all 
the  others  were  under  thirty.  Oliver  Brown,  Barclay  Coppoc,  and 
Leeman  were  not  yet  twenty-one.  The  average  age  of  the  twenty- 
one  followers  was  twenty-five  years  and  five  months.  Only  one  was 
of  foreign  birth ;  nearly  all  were  of  old  American  stock.  Sketches  of 
their  lives  follow. 

John  Henry  Kagi  was  the  best  educated  of  all  the  raiders,  but  was 
largely  self-taught.  Many  admirably  written  letters  survive  as  the 
productions  of  his  pen,  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  and  the  National  Era.  He  was,  moreover,  an  able  man 
of  business,  besides  being  an  excellent  debater  and  speaker.  He  was 
an  expert  stenographer  and  a  total  abstainer.  His  father  was  the 
respected  village  blacksmith  in  Bristolville,  Ohio,  whose  family  was 
of  Swiss  descent,  the  name  being  originally  Kagy.  John  A.  Kagi 
was  born  at  Bristolville,  March  15,  1835;  and  was  killed  October 
*7>  J859.  In  1854-55  he  taught  school  at  Hawkinstown,  Virginia, 
where  he  obtained  a  personal  knowledge  of  slavery.  This  resulted 
in  such  abolition  manifestations  on  his  part,  that  he  was  compelled 
to  leave  for  Ohio  under  a  pledge  never  to  return  to  Hawkinstown. 
Kagi  then  went  to  Nebraska  City,  Nebraska,  where  he  was  ad 
mitted  to  the  bar.  He  next  entered  Kansas  with  one  of  General 
James  H.  Lane's  parties.  He  enlisted  in  A.  D.  Stevens's  ("Colonel 
Whipple's")  Second  Kansas  Militia,  and  was  captured  in  1856  by 
United  States  troops.  Kagi  was  imprisoned  first  at  Lecompton  and 
then  at  Tecumseh,  but  was  finally  liberated.  He  was  assaulted  and 
severely  injured  by  Judge  Elmore,  the  pro-slavery  judge,  who  struck 
him  over  the  head  with  a  gold-headed  cane,  on  January  31,  1857. 
Kagi  drew  his  revolver  and  shot  the  Judge  in  the  groin.  Elmore 
then  fired  three  times  and  shot  Kagi  over  the  heart,  the  bullet  being 
stopped  by  a  memorandum-book.  Kagi  was  long  in  recovering  from 
his  wounds.  After  a  visit  to  his  Ohio  home  he  returned  to  Kansas 
and  joined  John  Brown.  When  in  Chambersburg  as  agent  for  the 
raiders,  he  boarded  with  Mrs.  Mary  Rittner. 

Aaron  Dwight  Stevens,  in  many  ways  the  most  interesting  and 
attractive  of  the  personalities  gathered  around  him  by  John  Brown, 
ran  away  from  home  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  in  1847,  and  enlisted  in  a 
Massachusetts  volunteer  regiment,  in  which  he  served  in  Mexico 
during  the  Mexican  War.  Later,  he  enlisted  in  Company  F  of  the 
First  United  States  Dragoons,  and  was  tried  for  "mutiny,  engaging 
in  a  drunken  riot,  and  assaulting  Major  George  A.  H.  Blake  of  his 
regiment,"  at  Taos,  New  Mexico,  in  May,  1855.  Stevens  was  sen- 


680  APPENDIX 

tenced  to  death,  but  this  was  commuted  by  President  Pierce  to  im 
prisonment  for  three  years  at  hard  labor  at  Fort  Leavenworth, 
from  which  post  he  escaped  and  joined  the  Free  State  forces.  In 
these  he  became  colonel  of  the  Second  Kansas  Militia,  under  the 
name  of  Whipple.  Thereafter  his  story  is  so  intertwined  with  that 
of  John  Brown  as  to  need  no  retelling  here.  Stevens  came  of  old 
Puritan  stock,  his  great-grandfather  having  been  a  captain  in  the 
Revolutionary  army.  He  was  a  man  of  superb  bravery  and  of  won 
derful  physique ;  he  was  well  over  six  feet,  was  blessed  with  a  great 
sense  of  humor,  and  was  sustained  at  the  end  by  his  belief  in  spiritu 
alism.  George  B.  Gill  wrote  of  him  in  1860:  "Stevens  —  how  glori 
ously  he  sang!  His  was  the  noblest  soul  I  ever  knew.  Though  owing 
to  his  rash,  hasty  way,  I  often  found  occasion  to  quarrel  with  him, 
more  so  than  with  any  of  the  others,  and  though  I  liked  Kagi  better 
than  any  man  I  ever  knew,  our  temperaments  being  adapted  to  each 
other,  yet  I  can  truly  say  that  Stevens  was  the  most  noble  man  that 
I  ever  knew."  George  H.  Hoyt,  Brown's  counsel,  in  a  letter  to  J.  W. 
Le  Barnes,  October  31,  1859,  thus  recorded  his  first  impression  of 
Stevens  at  Harper's  Ferry:  "Stevens  is  in  the  same  cell  with  Brown. 
I  have  frequent  talks  with  him.  He  's  in  a  most  pitiable  condition 
physically,  his  wounds  being  of  the  most  painful  and  dangerous 
character.  He  has  now  four  balls  in  his  body,  two  of  these  being 
about  the  head  and  neck.  He  bears  his  sufferings  with  grim  and  silent 
fortitude,  never  complaining  and  absolutely  without  hope.  He  is  a 
splendid  looking  young  fellow.  Such  black  and  penetrating  eyes! 
Such  an  expansive  brow !  Such  a  grand  chest  and  limbs !  He  was  the 
best,  and  in  fact  the  only  man  Brown  had  who  was  a  good  soldier, 
besides  being  reliable  otherwise."  Stevens  was  executed  March  1 6, 
i860. 

John  E.  Cook,  who  could  successfully  have  escaped  had  he  not, 
against  the  advice  of  his  comrades,  been  reckless  in  his  search  for 
food,  was  born  in  the  summer  of  1830,  in  Haddam,  Connecticut.  He 
was  of  a  well-to-do  family,  and  studied  law  in  Brooklyn  and  New 
York.  He  went  to  Kansas  in  1855.  His  movements  from  the  time  of 
his  first  meeting  with  Brown,  just  after  the  battle  of  Black  Jack,  in 
June,  1856,  until  after  his  capture,  are  set  forth  in  his  "Confession" 
made  while  in  jail  (published  at  Charlestown  as  a  pamphlet  in  the 
middle  of  November,  1859,  for  the  benefit  of  Samuel  C.  Young, 
who  was  crippled  for  life  in  the  fighting  at  Harper's  Ferry).  For 
this  confession  Cook  was  severely  censured  at  the  time  by  the  friends 
of  Brown;  he  was  even  called  the  "Judas"  of  the  raid.  But  the 
document,  when  examined  to-day,  obviously  contains  only  facts 
which  are  of  great  historical  value,  and  whose  promulgation  at  the 
time  in  no  wise  injured  the  case  of  his  fellow  raiders.  Had  it  not 
been  made,  the  result  of  the  trial  would  have  been  the  same.  Cook 
preceded  John  Brown  to  the  Harper's  Ferry  neighborhood  by  more 
than  a  year,  there  sometimes  teaching  school,  and  again  living  as 


APPENDIX  681 

a  lock-tender,  while  in  the  registration  of  his  marriage  to  Mary  V. 
Kennedy,  of  Harper's  Ferry,  April  18,  1859,  he  was  described  as  a 
book-agent.  He  was  captured  eight  miles  .from  Chambersburg, 
Pennsylvania,  October  25,  1859,  and  hanged  on  December  1 6.  He 
was  a  remarkably  fine  shot,  and  had  seen  much  fighting  in  Kansas. 
He  was  reckless,  impulsive,  indiscreet,  but  genial,  generous  and 
brave. 

Charles  Plummer  Tidd,  known  as  Charles  Plummer,  died  of  fever, 
on  the  transport  Northerner,  as  a  first  sergeant  of  the  Twenty-first 
Massachusetts  Volunteers,  on  February  8,  1862,  with  the  roar  of 
the  battle  of  Roanoke  Island  in  his  ears.  This  he  had  particularly 
wished  to  take  part  in,  for  ex-Governor  Henry  A.  Wise  was  in  com 
mand  of  the  Confederates,  his  son,  O.  Jennings  Wise,  being  killed 
in  the  engagement.  Tidd  had  enlisted  July  19,  1861,  as  a  private. 
He  was  born  in  Palermo,  Maine,  in  1834,  and  changed  his  name 
after  the  raid  in  order  to  avoid  possible  arrest  and  trial  as  a  Har 
per's  Ferry  raider  —  a  precaution  of  greater  importance  when  he 
entered  the  army.  He  emigrated  to  Kansas  with  the  party  of  Dr. 
Calvin  Cutter,  of  Worcester,  in  1856.  He  joined  John  Brown's  party 
at  Tabor,  in  1857,  and  thereafter,  in  Canada  and  elsewhere,  was  one  of 
Brown's  closest  associates,  returning  to  Kansas  in  1858  as  a  follower 
of  "Shubel  Morgan."  He  took  part  in  the  raid  into  Missouri.  After 
his  escape  from  Virginia,  he  visited  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  and  Canada,  and  was  freely  consulted  in  the  plans  for  rescue 
of  Stevens  and  Hazlett.  "Tidd,"  writes  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams, 
"had  not  much  education,  but  good  common  sense.  After  the  raid 
he  began  to  study,  and  tried  to  repair  his  deficiencies.  He  was  by 
no  means  handsome.  He  had  a  quick  temper,  but  was  kind-hearted. 
His  rages  soon  passed  and  then  he  tried  all  he  could  to  repair  dam 
ages.  He  was  a  fine  singer  and  of  strong  family  affections."  His 
grave  is  No.  40  in  the  New  Berne,  N.  C.,  National  Cemetery. 

Jeremiah  Goldsmith  Anderson  was  born  April  17,  1833,  in  Indiana, 
and  was  therefore  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  when  killed  at  Harper's 
Ferry.  He  was  the  son  of  John  Anderson,  and  was  the  grandson  of 
slaveholders;  his  maternal  grandfather,  Colonel  Jacob  Westfall, 
of  Tygert  Valley,  Virginia,  was  a  soldier  in  the  Revolutionary  War; 
he  went  to  school  at  Galesburg,  Illinois,  and  Kossuth,  Iowa;  was 
a  peddler,  farmer,  and  employee  of  a  saw-mill,  before  emigrating  to 
Kansas  in  August,  1857,  where  he  settled  on  the  Little  Osage,  Bour 
bon  County,  a  mile  from  Fort  Bain.  He  was  twice  arrested  by  pro- 
slaveryites,  and  for  ten  weeks  imprisoned  at  Fort  Scott;  he  then 
became  a  lieutenant  of  Captain  Montgomery,  and  was  with  him 
in  the  attack  on  Captain  Anderson's  troop  of  the  First  U.  S.  Cavalry. 
He  also  witnessed  the  murder  on  his  own  doorstep  of  a  Mr.  Denton 
by  Border  Ruffians.  He  was  with  John  Brown  on  the  slave  raid 
into  Missouri,  and  thereafter  followed  Brown's  fortunes.  Writing 


682  APPENDIX 

July  5,  1859,  of  his  determination  to  continue  to  fight  for  freedom, 
he  said:  "Millions  of  fellow-beings  require  it  of  us;  their  cries  for 
help  go  out  to  the  universe  daily  and  hourly.  Whose  duty  is  it  to 
help  them?  Is  it  yours?  Is  it  mine?  It  is  every  man's,  but  how  few 
there  are  to  help.  But  there  are  a  few  who  dare  to  answer  this  call, 
and  dare  to  answer  it  in  a  manner  that  will  make  this  land  of  liberty 
and  equality  shake  to  the  centre." 

Albert  Hazlett  was  born  in  Pennsylvania,  September  21,  1837, 
and  was  executed  March  16,  1860.  George  B.  Gill  says:  "I  was 
acquainted  with  Hazlett  well  enough  in  Kansas,  yet  after  all  knew 
but  little  of  him.  He  was  with  Montgomery  considerably,  and  was 
with  Stevens  on  the  raid  in  which  Cruise  was  killed.  He  was  a  good- 
sized,  fine-looking  fellow,  overflowing  with  good  nature  and  social 
feelings.  .  .  .  Brown  got  acquainted  with  him  just  before  leaving 
Kansas."  Before  the  raid  he  worked  on  his  brother's  farm  in  west 
ern  Pennsylvania,  joining  the  others  at  Kennedy  Farm  in  the  early 
part  of  September,  1859.  To  Mrs.  Rebecca  Spring  he  wrote  on 
March  15,  1860,  the  eve  of  his  execution,  "Your  letter  gave  me  great 
comfort  to  know  that  my  body  would  be  taken  from  this  land  of 
chains.  ...  I  am  willing  to  die  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  if  I  had 
ten  thousand  lives  I  would  willingly  lay  them  all  down  for  the  same 
cause."  He  was  arrested  in  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania,  under  the  name 
of  William  Harrison,  on  October  22,  extradited  to  Virginia,  tried 
and  sentenced  at  the  spring  term  of  the  Court,  and  hanged  on 
March  16,  1860. 

Edwin  Coppoc,  brother  of  Barclay,  was  captured  with  Brown 
in  the  engine  house,  tried  immediately  after  him,  sentenced  on 
November  2,  and  hung  with  Cook  on  December  16,  1859.  The 
father  of  the  Coppocs  died  when  Edwin  was  six,  the  latter  having 
been  born  June  30,  1835.  For  nine  years  thereafter  Edwin  lived 
with  John  Butler,  a  farmer,  near  Salem,  Ohio,  removing  then  with 
his  mother  to  Springdale,  Iowa.  This  place  he  left  in  the  spring  of 
1858,  to  become  a  settler  in  Kansas.  He  took  no  part  in  the  Terri 
torial  troubles,  and  returned  to  Springdale  in  the  autumn  of  1858, 
when  he  became  acquainted  with  Brown.  He  always  bore  an  ex 
cellent  reputation  as  an  honest,  brave,  straightforward,  well-be 
haved  man,  and  his  death  was  particularly  lamented  by  many 
friends.  An  exemplary  prisoner,  there  were  many  Southerners  who 
hoped  for  his  pardon.  He  was  buried  first  in  Winona  [later  in  Salem, 
Ohio],  after  a  public  funeral,  attended  by  the  entire  town.  In  jail 
he  regretted  his  situation,  wrote  his  mother  of  his  sorrow  that  he 
must  die  a  dishonorable  death,  and  explained  that  he  had  not  un 
derstood  what  the  full  consequences  of  the  raid  would  be.  He  died 
with  absolute  fortitude. 

Barclay  Coppoc  was  born  at  Salem,  Ohio,  January  4,  1839,  and 


APPENDIX;  683 

had  not  attained  his  majority  at  the  time  of  the  raid.  He  escaped 
from  Harper's  Ferry,  but  only  to  meet  a  tragic  fate  in  that  he  was 
killed  by  the  fall  of  a  train  into  the  Platte  River  from  a  trestle  forty 
feet  high,  the  supports  of  which  had  been  burned  away  by  Con 
federates.  Coppoc  was  then  a  first  lieutenant  in  the  Third  Kansas 
Infantry,  Colonel  Montgomery's  regiment,  having  received  his 
commission  July  24,  1861.  Barclay  Coppoc  went  straight  to  Iowa 
after  his  escape  from  Harper's  Ferry,  whither  Virginia  agents  fol 
lowed  to  attempt  his  arrest.  He  went  back  to  Kansas  in  1860, 
helped  to  run  off  some  Missouri  slaves,  and  nearly  lost  his  life  in  a 
second  undertaking  of  this  kind.  The  accident  which  ended  his  life 
took  place  at  night;  he  survived  his  injuries  until  the  next  day, 
September  3,  1861.  He  was  buried  at  Leavenworth,  Kansas.  He 
was  in  Kansas  for  a  time  in  the  fall  of  1856. 

William  Thompson^  son  of  Roswell  Thompson,  was  born  in  Au 
gust,  1833,  and  was  killed  October  17,  1859.  He  married  Mary  Ann 
Brown,  a  neighbor,  but  no  relation  of  the  Brown  family.  He  had 
no  hesitation  as  to  where  his  duty  lay  when  the  call  came  to  help 
free  the  slaves.  He  started  for  Kansas  in  1856,  but  turned  back  on 
meeting  the  Brown  sons,  who  returned  to  North  Elba  in  the  fall  of 
that  year.  He  was  full  of  fun  and  good  nature,  and  bore  himself  un 
flinchingly  when  face  to  face  with  death.  Both  William  Thompson 
and  his  brother  Dauphin  went  to  Harper's  Ferry  without  being 
urged  and  purely  from  a  sense  of  right  and  duty  to  a  great 
cause. 

Dauphin  Osgood  Thompson,  brother  of  William  and  also  a  neigh 
bor  of  the  Browns  at  North  Elba,  was  born  April  17,  1838,  and  was 
filled  in  the  engine  house  on  October  18,  1859.  He  was  the  brother 
of  William  Thompson,  who  also  fell,  and  of  Henry  Thompson.  Their 
sister  Isabella  married  Watson  Brown.  Dauphin  Thompson  was  a 
handsome,  inexperienced,  country  boy,  "  more  like  a  girl  than  a  war 
rior,"  and  "diffident  and  quiet." 

Oliver  Brown,  the  youngest  son  of  John  Brown  to  reach  manhood, 
was  born  March  9, 1 839,  at  Franklin,  Ohio.  He  went  to  Kansas  in  1 855 
with  his  father,  returning  to  North  Elba  in  October,  1856.  For  a  time 
in  1857  he  was  at  work  in  Connecticut.  He  married  Martha  E.  Brew- 
ster,  April  7, 1858,  when  but  nineteen  years  old,  and  died  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  October  18,  1859,  in  his  twenty-first  year.  His  girl-wife  and 
her  baby  died  early  in  1860.  "Oliver  developed  rather  slowly,"  says 
Miss  Sarah  Brown.  "  In  his  earlier  teens  he  was  al  ways  pre-occu  pied, 
absent-minded,  —  always  reading,  and  then  it  was  impossible  to 
catch  his  attention.  But  in  his  last  few  years  he  came  out  very  fast. 
His  awkwardness  left  him.  He  read  every  solid  book  that  he  could 
find,  and  was  especially  fond  of  Theodore  Parker's  writings,  as  was 
his  father.  Had  Oliver  lived,  and  not  killed  himself  by  over-study, 


684  APPENDIX ' 

he  would  have  made  his  mark.   By  his  exertions  the  sale  of  liquor 
was  stopped  at  North  Elba." 

John  Anthony  Copeland,  Jr.,  a  free  colored  man,  was  born  at 
Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  August  15,  1834,  and  executed  at  Charles- 
town,  December  16,  1859.  His  parents  removed  to  Oberlin,  Ohio,  in 
1842.  He  was  for  some  time  a  student  in  the  preparatory  depart 
ment  of  Oberlin  College,  and  was  enlisted  for  John  Brown  in  Septem 
ber,  1859,  by  Lewis  Sheridan  Leary,  his  uncle,  who  was  at  that  time 
also  residing  at  Oberlin.  He  was  one  of  the  thirty-seven  men  con 
cerned  in  the  famous  Oberlin  rescue  of  a  fugitive  slave,  John  Price, 
for  which  he  was  for  some  time  imprisoned  at  Cleveland.  "Cope- 
land,"  Judge  Parker  stated  in  his  story  of  the  trials  (St.  Louis  Globe 
Democrat,  April  8,  1888),  "was  the  prisoner  who  impressed  me  best. 
He  was  a  free  negro.  He  had  been  educated,  and  there  was  a  dignity 
about  him  that  I  could  not  help  liking.  He  was  always  manly." 
Andrew  Hunter  at  the  same  time  was  quoted  as  saying:  "Cope- 
land  was  the  cleverest  of  all  the  prisoners  .  .  .  and  behaved  better 
than  any  of  them.  If  I  had  had  the  power  and  could  have  concluded 
to  pardon  any  man  among  them,  he  was  the  man  I  would  have 
picked  out."  On  November  26,  from  his  cell  in  Charlestown,  Cope- 
land  sent  a  letter  to  his  parents,  now  in  the  possession  of  his  sister, 
Miss  Mary  Copeland,  of  Oberlin,  Ohio,  of  which  the  following  is  an 
extract : 

"DEAR  PARENTS,  —  my  fate  as  far  as  man  can  seal  it  is  sealed, 
but  let  this  not  occassion  you  any  misery  for  remember  the  cause  in 
which  I  was  engaged,  remember  that  it  was  a  'Holy  Cause,'  one  in 
which  men  who  in  every  point  of  vew  better  than  I  am  have  suffered 
and  died,  remember  that  if  I  must  die  I  die  in  trying  to  liberate  a 
few  of  my  poor  and  oppress  people  from  my  condition  of  serveatud 
which  God  in  his  Holy  Writ  has  hurled  his  most  bitter  denunciations 
against  and  in  which  men  who  were  by  the  color  of  their  faces  re 
moved  from  the  direct  injurious  affect,  have  already  lost  their  lives 
and  still  more  remain  to  meet  the  same  fate  which  has  been  by  man 
decided  that  I  must  meet." 

Stewart  Taylor,  the  only  one  of  the  raiders  not  of  American  birth, 
was  but  twenty-three  when  killed,  having  been  born  October  29, 
1836,  at  Uxbridge,  Canada.  Of  American  descent,  and  a  wagon- 
maker  by  trade,  he  went  to  Iowa  in  1853,  where  in  1858  he  became 
acquainted  with  John  Brown  through  George  B.  Gill.  He  is  described 
as  being  "heart  and  soul  in  the  anti-slavery  cause.  An  excellent 
debater  and  very  fond  of  studying  history.  He  stayed  at  home,  in 
Canada,  for  the  winter  of  1858-59,  and  then  went  to  Chicago,  thence 
to  Bloomington,  Illinois,  and  thence  to  Harper's  Ferry.  He  was  a 
very  good  phonographer  [stenographer],  rapid  and  accurate.  He 
was  overcome  with  distress  when,  getting  out  of  communication 
with  the  John  Brown  movement,  he  thought  for  a  time  that  he  was 


APPENDIX  685 

to  be  left  out."  —  Letter  of  Jacob  L.  Taylor,  Pine  Orchard,  Canada 
West,  April  23,  1860,  to  Richard  J.  Hinton, — in  Hinton  Papers, 
Kansas  Historical  Society.  Taylor  was  a  spiritualist. 

William  H.  Leeman,  born  March  20,  1839,  and  killed  on  October 
17,  1859,  tne  youngest  of  the  raiders,  had  early  left  home,  being  of  a 
rather  wild  disposition.  Owen  Brown  found  him  hard  to  control  at 
Springdale.  Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams  writes  of  him:  "He  was  only 
a  boy.  He  smoked  a  good  deal  and  drank  sometimes;  but  perhaps 
people  would  not  think  that  so  very  wicked  now.  He  was  very  hand 
some  and  very  attractive."  Educated  in  the  public  schools  of  Saco 
and  Hallowell,  Maine,  he  worked  in  a  shoe-factory  in  Haverhill, 
Massachusetts,  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  In  1856  he  entered  Kansas 
with  the  second  Massachusetts  colony  of  that  year,  and  became  a 
member  of  John  Brown's  "Volunteer  Regulars"  September^,  1856. 
He  fought  well  at  Osawatomie,  when  but  seventeen  years  old. 
George  B.  Gill  says  of  him  that  he  had  "a  good  intellect  with  great 
ingenuity." 

O shorn  Perry  Anderson,  colored,  survived  the  raid  to  die  of  con 
sumption  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  December  13,  1872.  Born  July  27, 
1830,  at  West  Fallowfield,  Pennsylvania,  he  was  in  his  thirtieth  year 
at  the  time  of  the  raid,  of  which  and  of  his  escape  he  left  a  record  in 
'A  Voice  from  Harper's  Ferry,'  which  contains,  however,  many 
erroneous  statements.  He  learned  the  printing  trade  in  Canada, 
where  he  met  John  Brown  in  1858.  After  his  escape  he  returned  to 
Canada.  During  the  Civil  War,  in  1864,  he  enlisted,  became  a  non 
commissioned  officer,  and  was  mustered  out  at  the  close  of  the  war 
in  Washington. 

1 f  Francis  Jackson  Meriam  was  born  November  17,  1837,  at  Fram- 
ingham,  Massachusetts,  and  died  suddenly  November  28,  1865,  in 
New  York  City,  after  having  served  in  the  army  as  a  captain  in  the 
Third  South  Carolina  Colored  Infantry.  Erratic  and  unbalanced, 
he  was  forever  urging  wild  schemes  upon  his  superiors,  and  often 
attempting  them.  In  an  engagement  under  Grant  he  was  severely 
wounded  in  the  leg.  Early  in  the  war  he  married  Minerva  Caldwell, 
of  Galena,  Illinois.  He  was  in  Boston,  coming  from  Canada,  on  the 
day  of  John  Brown's  execution,  but  was  finally  induced  by  friends  to 
go  back  to  Canada.  Mr.  Sanborn  has  characterized  Meriam  as  of 
"little  judgment  and  in  feeble  health,"  but  "generous,  brave  and 
devoted." 

Lewis  Sheridan  Leary,  colored,  left  a  wife  and  a  six  months  old 
child  at  Oberlin,  to  go  to  Harper's  Ferry.  The  latter  was  subse 
quently  educated  by  James  Redpath  and  Wendell  Phillips;  the 
widow,  now  Mrs.  Mary  Leary  Langston,  is  still  a  resident  of  Law 
rence,  Kansas.  Leary  was  descended  from  an  Irishman,  Jeremiah 


686  APPENDIX 

O'Leary,  who  fought  in  the  Revolution  under  General  Nathanael 
Greene,  and  married  a  woman  of  mixed  blood,  partly  negro,  partly 
of  that  Croatan  Indian  stock  of  North  Carolina,  which  is  be 
lieved  by  some  to  be  lineally  descended  from  the  "lost  colonists" 
left  by  John  White  on  Roanoke  Island  in  1587.  Leary,  like  his 
father,  was  a  saddler  and  harness-maker.  In  1857  he  went  to  Oberlin 
to  live,  marrying  there,  and  making  the  acquaintance  of  John  Brown 
in  Cleveland.  He  survived  his  terrible  wounds  for  eight  hours,  dur 
ing  which  he  was  well  treated  and  able  to  send  messages  to  his 
family.  He  is  reported  as  saying:  "  I  am  ready  to  die."  His  wife  was 
in  ignorance  of  his  object  when  he  left  home.  Leary  was  born  at 
Fayetteville,  North  Carolina,  March  17,  1835,  and  was  therefore 
in  his  twenty-fifth  year  when  killed. 

i$* 

Owen  Brown,born  November  4,  1824,  at  Hudson,  Ohio,  was  John 
Brown's  third  son,  and  his  stalwart,  reliable  lieutenant  both  in 
Kansas  and  at  Harper's  Ferry.  It  was  due  largely  to  his  unfaltering 
determination  and  great  physical  strength  that  the  little  group  of 
survivors  of  which  he  was  the  leader  reached  safe  havens.  After  the 
war  he  was  for  some  time  a  grape-grower  in  Ohio,  in  association  with 
two  of  his  brothers.  Thence  he  removed  to  California,  where  he 
died,  January  9,  1891,  in  his  mountain  home,  "Brown's  Peak," 
near  Pasadena,  poor  in  worldly  goods,  but  with  the  respect  and  re 
gard  of  his  neighbors.  A  marble  monument  marks  his  mountain-side 
grave.  He  never  married.  He  was,  like  all  the  Browns,  original 
in  expression  and  in  thought,  and  not  without  considerable  humor. 
He  was  the  only  one  of  the  five  men  who  escaped  from  the  raid 
who  did  not  enter  the  Union  army,  and  he  was  the  last  of  the  raiders 
to  die. 

Watson  Brown,  born  at  Franklin,  Ohio,  October  7,  1835,  married 
Isabella  M.  Thompson  in  September,  1856,  and  died  of  his  wounds 
at  Harper's  Ferry  on  October  18,  1859.  He  was:  "Tall  and  rather 
fair,  with  finely  knit  frame,  athletic  and  active."  Of  little  education, 
he  was  a  man  of  marked  ability  and  sterling  character,  who  bore 
well  the  family  responsibilities  which  fell  to  him  when  all  the  other 
men  of  the  clan  went  to  Kansas.  His  son  lived  only  to  his  fifth 
year;  his  widow  later  married  her  husband's  cousin,  Salmon  Brown. 

Danger  field  Newby,  colored,  was  born  a  slave  in  1815,  in  Fauquier 
County,  Virginia.  His  father,  a  Scotchman,  freed  his  mulatto  chil 
dren.  Newby's  wife,  from  whom  he  received  the  touching  letters 
given  in  the  text,  was  the  slave  of  Jesse  Jennings,  of  Warington,  Vir 
ginia.  She  and  her  children  were  "sold  South "  after  the  raid,  but  it 
is  said  that  she  subsequently  lived  in  Ohio.  The  shot  that  gave  to 
Newby  his  death-wound  cut  his  throat  from  ear  to  ear,  the  missile 
being  a  six-inch  spike  in  lieu  of  a  bullet.  Newby  was  six  feet  two 
inches  tall,  a  splendid  physical  specimen,  of  light  color. 


APPENDIX  687 

/  Shields  Green,  colored,  otherwise  known  as  "  Emperor,"  was  born  a 
slave.  After  the  death  of  his  wife,  he  escaped  on  a  sailing  vessel  from 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  leaving  a  little  son  in  slavery.  He  event 
ually  found  his  way  to  Rochester,  New  York,  three  years  after  his 
escape  and  after  a  sojourn  in  Canada.  Here  he  became  acquainted 
with  Frederick  Douglass,  and  through  him  with  John  Brown,  and 
here  he  lived  as  a  servant  and  a  clothes-cleaner.  He  went  with 
Douglass  to  Chambersburg  to  meet  John  Brown,  and  went  on  with 
Brown  when  Douglass  turned  back.  Several  reliable  prisoners  in  the 
engine  house  testified  to  Shields  Green's  cowardice  during  the  fight. 
He  endeavored  to  avoid  arrest  by  palming  himself  off  as  one  of  the 
slaves  impressed  by  Brown.  O.  P.  Anderson,  however,  speaks  of 
Green's  bravery,  and  declares  that  Green  could  have  escaped  with 
him,  but  that  the  former  slave  protested  that  he  would  go  back  "to 
de  ole  man,"  even  if  there  was  no  chance  of  escape.  Owen  Brown 
had  a  poor  opinion  of  Green's  staunchness,  after  his  experience  in 
bringing  him  down  from  Chambersburg  to  the  Kennedy  Farm. 
Green's  age  is  said  to  have  been  twenty-three  years.  He  was  a  full- 
blooded  negro. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I.  MANUSCRIPT  COLLECTIONS 

The  Kansas  State  Historical  Society  Archives  contain  one  volume  of  letters 
and  manuscripts  written  by  John  Brown  or  members  of  his  family.  They  contain 
also  a  large  set  of  scrap-books  devoted  exclusively  to  John  Brown  history,  and 
a  bequest  of  the  late  Col,  R.  J.  Hinton  comprises  a  mass  of  letters  and  other 
manuscript  material  colle'cfed  by  him  when  writing  his  'John  Brown  and  His 
Men.'  The  manuscript  executive  minutes  of  the  early  governors  of  Kansas,  and 
vast  masses  of  manuscript  papers  of  many  Kansas  pioneers,  make  them  a  prime 
field  of  interest  for  any  student  of  John  Brown. 

In  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania  is  the  Dreer  Manuscript  Collection, 
containing  letters  and  papers  of  Brown  and  letters  and  official  documents  written 
by  and  sent  to  the  Virginia  authorities  at  the  time  of  the  raid,  as  well  as  a  volume 
of  the  correspondence  of  President  Buchanan.  Most  of  the  matter  relating  to  the 
raid  was  taken  from  the  State  House  at  Richmond  and  brought  North  by  Fed 
eral  soldiers  and  by  Dreer  himself.  In  the  collection  of  Mr.  Edwin  Tatham  of 
New  York  City  are  similar  letters  and  documents  which  supplement  the  Dreer 
collection  in  a  remarkable  way.  His  valuable  possessions  also  bear  upon  the 
relation  of  the  State  of  Virginia  to  the  raid. 

Two  volumes  of  John  Brown's  diaries  or  note-books,  the  gift  of  the  late  Wendell 
Phillips  Garrison,  are  in  the  Boston  Public  Library,  which  also  owns  the  priceless 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  Collection  of  manuscripts  and  letters  written 
by  John  Brown  and  his  New  England  allies  concerning  his  enterprises.  The 
Public  Library  at  Torrington,  Connecticut,  the  Public  Library  at  Omaha, 
Nebraska,  in  its  Byron  Reed  collection  of  manuscripts,  Oberlin  College,  Ohio,  and 
Haverford  College,  Pennsylvania,  are  also  possessors  of  Brown  documents. 
No  student  of  Jchn  Brown's  life  can  afford  to  overlook  the  collections  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  particularly  the  John  Brown  papers  of  the 
late  A.  A.  Lawrence,  or  the  papers  of  the  late  George  L.  Stearns,  some  of  which 
are  owned  by  the  Kansas  Historical  Society  and  some  in  the  possession  of  the 
Stearns  family,  who  also  own  John  Brown's  autobiography.  As  will  be  seen  from 
the  Notes,  many  indispensable  letters  are  in  the  possession  of  the  various  mem 
bers  of  the  Brown  family.  In  the  author's  collection  are  a  number  of  the  James 
H.  Holmes  papers  relating  to  John  Brown,  and  many  valuable  papers  of  the  late 
Col.  R.  J.  Hinton  regarding  John  Brown  and  Richard  Realf.  The  original  Mason 
Report  papers  and  correspondence  are  in  the  Senate  archives. 

II.  BIOGRAPHIES 
(Chronologically  arranged) 

REDPATH,  JAMES.  —  The  Public  Life  of  Captain  John  Brown.  —  Boston:  Thayer 

and  Eldridge.    1860.    Pp.  408. 
WEBB,  RICHARD  D.  —  Life  and  Letters  of  Captain  John  Brown.  —  London: 

Smith  Elder  &  Co.   1861.   Pp.  453. 
SANBORN,  FRANKLIN  BENJAMIN.  —  The  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown. — 

Boston:  Roberts  Bros.   1885.   Pp.  645. 


69o  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

HINTON,  RICHARD  J.  —  John  Brown  and  his  Men.    With  some  Account  of  the 

L  Roads  they  Travelled  to  Reach  Harper's  Ferry.  —  New  York:  Funk  &  Wag- 
nails  Co.  1894.  Pp.  752. 

CHAMBERLIN,  JOSEPH  EDGAR.  —  John  Brown.  —  Boston:  Small,  Maynard  & 
Company.  1899.  Pp.  138. 

CONNELLEY,  WILLIAM  ELSEY.  —  John  Brown.  —  Topeka,  Kansas:  Crane  & 
Company.  1900.  Pp.  426. 

NEWTON,  JOHN.  —  Captain  John  Brown  of  Harper's  Ferry. — London:  T. 
Fisher  Unwin.  1902.  Pp.  288. 

Du  Bois,  W.  E.  B.  —  John  Brown.  —  Philadelphia:  George  W.  Jacobs  &  Com 
pany.  1909.  Pp.  406. 

VILLARD,  OSWALD  GARRISON.  —  John  Brown,  1800-1859.  A  Biography  Fifty 
Years  After.  — Boston  and  New  York:  Houghton  Mifflin  Company.  1910. 

!.   Pp.738. 

III.  MAGAZINE  AND  OTHER  ARTICLES 

ADAMS,  S.  H.  —  John  Brown.     Tabor,  Iowa,  College  Monthly.    May,  1894. 
J  ALLABEN,  A.  E.  —  John    Brown  as  a    Popular    Hero.  Magazine    of    Western 
History.  November,  1893. 

APPLETON,  W.  S.  —  John  Brown  and  the  Destruction  of  Slavery.     Massachu 
setts  Historical  Society  Proceedings.    Second  Series,  vol.  14.     1901. 
^  ATKINSON,    ELEANOR.  —  The    Soul    of    John    Brown.      American    Magazine. 
October,  1909. 

BACON,  LEONARD,    D.  D.  —  The  Moral  of  Harper's  Ferry.      The  New  Englander. 

November,  1859. 

X;    BACON,  LEONARD  WOOLSEY.  —  John   Brown.     New   Englander  and   Yale  Re 
view.  April,  1886.    (Review  of  Sanborn's  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown.) 

BAUMGARTNER,  J.  HAMPTON.  —  Fifty  Years  after  John  Brown.  Book  of  the 
Royal  Blue.  Published  by  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  R.  R.  Co.,  Baltimore.  De 
cember,  1909. 

BEALE,  JAMES.  —  A  Famous  War  Song.  Paper  read  before  the  United  Service 
Club,  Philadelphia.  Printed  by  the  Author.  (No  date.) 

BETZ,  I.  H.  —  An  Hour  with  John  Brown.  The  Pennsylvania  German.  Octo 
ber,  1909. 

.J    BOTELER,  ALEXANDER  R.  —  Recollections  of  the  John  Brown  Raid,  with  com 
ment  by  F.  B.  Sanborn.   The  Century.     July,  1883. 

BOWMAN,  GEORGE  E.  —  Peter  Browne's  Children.  The  Mayflower  Descendant. 
January,  1902. 

-  The  Settlement  of  Peter  Browne's  Estate.     The  Mayflower  Descend 
ant,  January,  1903. 

BROWN. — The  John  Brown  Letters:  Found  in  the  Virginia  State  Library  in 
1901.  Virginia  Magazine  of  History  and  Biography,  vols.  9-11.  1901-1903. 

BROWN'S  FUGITIVES,  JOHN.  —  Anonymous  article  in  Springfield  Republican. 
June  12,  1909. 

BROWN,  OWEN.  —  A  Letter.     Atlantic  Monthly.    July,  1874. 

BUTLER,  MRS.  E.  S.  —  A  Woman's  Recollections  of  John  Brown's  Stay  in  Spring- 
dale.   Midland  Monthly.   November,  1898. 
^  CHAMBERS,  JENNIE.  —  What  a  School-Girl  saw  of  John  Brown's  Raid.  Harper's 

Monthly.   January,  1902. 
«/    CHAPIN,  Lou  V.  —  The  Last  Days  of  Old  John  Brown.     Overland  Monthly. 

L    April,  1899. 


^BIBLIOGRAPHY  691 

^CLEMENS,  WILL  M.  —  John  Brown,  the  American  Reformer.     Peterson  Maga 
zine.   January-August,  1898. 

COOKE,  G.  W.  —  Brown  and  Garrison.  The  American,  vol.  u.  October,  1885- 
April,  1886.  [Philadelphia]. 

COPPOC,  EDWIN.  —  [Article  on;  anonymous]  Iowa  Historical  Records.  April, 
1895. 

COPPOC,  REV.  J.  L. —  John  Brown  and  His  Cause.  Midland  Monthly.  Sep 
tember,  1895. 

COTTERELL,  GEORGE.  —  Sanborn's  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown.  Brown's 
Character  Estimated.  The  Academy,  London.  February  20,  1886. 

COURTENAY,  AUSTEN  M.  —  The  Actual  John  Brown.  Chautauquan.  January, 
1897. 

DAINGERFIELD,  JOHN  E.  P.  —  John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry.  The  Century. 
June,  1885. 

DANA,  RICHARD  HENRY,  JR.  —  How  We  Met  John  Brown.  Atlantic  Monthly. 
July,  1871. 

DAY,  W.  G.  —  John  Brown's  Invasion  of  Virginia.  Southern  Magazine. 
October,  1873. 

EMERY,  INA  CAPITOLA.  —  The  Hero  of  Harper's  Ferry.  Nickell  Magazine. 
June,  1897. 

ERB,  EDWARD.  —  An  Abolitionist.    Pittsburg  Post.    May  28,  1899. 

EWING,  THOMAS.  —  The  Struggle  for  Freedom  in  Kansas.  Cosmopolitan 
Magazine.  May,  1894. 

"F.,  M.  H."--The  Wife  of  Capt.  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie;  a  Brave  Life. 
Overland  Monthly.  October,  1885. 

FEATHERSTONHAUGH,  THOMAS,  M.  D.  —  A  Bibliography  of  John  Brown.  —  Balti 
more:  The  Friedenwald  Company.  1897.  Pp.  9.  Reprint  from  Publications 
of  the  Southern  History  Association.  July,  1897. 

John  Brown's  Men  .  .  .  with  a  Supplementary  Bibliography  of  John 

Brown.  —  Harrisburg,  Pa.:  Harrisburg  Publishing  Company.     1899.     Pp.    28. 
Reprinted  from  Publications  of  Southern  History  Association.  October,  1899. 

The  Final   Burial  of    the  Followers    of    John  Brown.     New  England 

Magazine.   April,  1901. 

'  FELLOWS,  COL.  WILLIAM.  —  Saw  John  Brown  Hanged.  New  York  Sun.  Feb 
ruary  13,  1898. 

FLEMING,  WALTER  L.  —  The  Buford  Expedition  to  Kansas.  American  His 
torical  Review.  October,  1900. 

FORSTER,  W.  E.  —  Harper's  Ferry  and  "Old  Captain   Brown."     Macmillan's- 

February,  1860. 
]/  GREEN,   ISRAEL. — The   Capture  of   John    Brown.    North   American    Review. 

December,  1885. 

I/  GRIFFIS,  REV.  WILLIAM  ELIOT.  — Refutation  of  Several  Romances  about  the 
Execution  of  John  Brown.  Southern  Historical  Society  Papers,  vol.  13.  Rich 
mond,  1885. 

GUE,  B.  F.  —  John  Brown  and  his  Iowa  Friends.   Midland  Monthly.   February 

and  March,  1897. 

J/HADLEY,  DANIEL  B/ — Reminiscences  of  John  Brown.  McClure's.  January,  1898. 
^/HALSTEAD,  MURAT.  —  The  Tragedy  of  John  Brown.    The  Independent.    De 
cember  i,  1898. 

HAMILTON,  JAMES  CLELAND.  —  John  Brown  in  Canada.  Canadian  Magazine. 
December,  1894. 

HARRIS,  RANSOM  LANGDON.  —  John  Brown  and  His  Followers  in  Iowa.  Mid 
land  Monthly.  October,  1894. 


692  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

t/  HASSARD,  J.  R.  G.  —  The  Apology  for  John  Brown.    Catholic  World.    January, 

1886. 
HA  WES,  ALEXANDER  G.  —  In  Kansas  with  John  Brown.  The  Californian.  July, 

1881. 
HILL,  FREDERICK  TREVOR.  —  Decisive  Battles  of  the  Law;  The  Commonwealth 

vs.  John  Brown.    Harper's  Monthly.  July,  1906. 

y  HINTON,  RICHARD  J.  —  John  Brown  and  His  Men.  Frank  Leslie's  Popular 
Magazine.  June,  1889. 

—  Old  John  Brown  and  the  Men  of  Harper's  Ferry.     Time    [London]. 
July,  1890. 

V  HUHNER,  LEON.  —  Some  Jewish  Associates  of  John  Brown.  Magazine  of  His 
tory.  September  and  October,  1908. 

\l  HUNTER,  ANDREW.  — John  Brown's  Raid.  New  Orleans  Times- Democrat.  Sep 
tember  5, 1887. 

—  John  Brown's  Raid.    Southern  History  Association  Publications,  vol. 
I.   1897. 

V    INGALLS,  JOHN  J.  —  John  Brown's  Place  in  History.   North  American  Review. 

February,  1894. 
ISELY,  W.  H.  —  The  Sharp's  Rifle  Episode  in  Kansas.    American   Historical 

Review.  April,  1907. 
JOYCE,  BURR.  —  John  Brown's  Raids.    St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat.   April   15, 

1888. 
i  KEELER,   RALPH.  —  Owen   Brown's    Escape  from    Harper's    Ferry.    Atlantic 

Monthly.   March,  1874. 

KEIM,  A.  R.  —  John    Brown  in  Richardson    County    [Nebraska].  —  Nebraska 
4/      State  Historical  Society  Transactions,  vol.  2.    1887. 

V  KEITH,  JOHN.  —  John  Brown  as  a  Poet.    Magazine  of  Western  History.    May, 
,      1889. 

\j  KIMBALL,  GEORGE.  —  Origin  of  the  John  Brown  Song.    New  England   Maga 
zine.   New  Series,  vol.  I.   December,  1889. 
^  LAMBERTON,  JOHN  PORTER.  —  John  Brown. — Lippincott's.    1888. 

LAMPSON,  E.  C.  —  The  Black-String  Bands.    Cleveland  Plain- Dealer.    October 

8,  1899. 
LAWRENCE,  SAMUEL.  —  Three  Letters.    ...    I.  John  Brown.    Old  Residents' 

Historical  Association,  vol.  I.   Lowell,  Massachusetts.    1873. 
LEE,  FRANCIS  W.  —  Letter,  giving  history  of  inscription  on  boulder  on  the  North 

Elba  Farm.    Garden  and  Forest.   March  n,  1896. 
LEECH,  REV.  S.  V.  —  The  Raid  of  John  Brown  into  Virginia.    The  Athenaeum 

of  West  Virginia  University.    April  14,  1900. 
LEWIS,  WALTER.  Life  of  Capt.  John  Brown.    The  Academy  [London].  February 

20,  1886. 
LLOYD,  FREDERICK.  —  John  Brown  among  the  Pedee  Quakers.    Annals  State 

Historical  Society,  Iowa,  vol.  4.   April-October,  1866. 
\J    MCCLELLAN,  KATHERINE  ELIZABETH.  —  A  Hero's  Grave  in  the  Adirondacks.  — 

Saranac  Lake,  New  York:  Published  by  the  Author.    1896.   Pp.  20. 
McKiM,  J.   MILLER.  —  Mrs.   Brown  and  Her  Family.    National  Anti-Slavery 

Standard.    December  3,  1859. 

MACLEAN,  J.  P.,  Ph.  D.  —  The  Shaker  Community  of  Warren  County.     Ohio 

Archaeological  and  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  10.    Columbus.  1901. 

\J    MARSHALL,  G.  A.  —  Another  John  Brown  Song.     The  Independent.    July  21, 

1910. 

[THE]  MOCK  AUCTION.  —  Hudibras  Redivivus.   A  Review  of  Osawattomie  Sold. 
A  Satire.    Southern  Literary  Messenger.  June,  1860. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  693 

?/ MORSE,  J.  T.,  JR.  —  Review  of  F.  B.  Sanborn's  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown. 

Atlantic  Monthly.   February,  1886. 
fr    MORSE,   SIDNEY   H.  —  Editorial   Commemoration  of  the  9th  Anniversary   of 

Brown's  Execution.    The  Radical.   December,  1868. 
^NICHOLS,    MAY    E.  —  John    Brown  and    His   Adirondack   Grave   and    Home. 

National  Magazine.   July,  1903. 
/NORTON,  C.  E.  —  Review  of  Redpath's  "Public  Life  of  Captain  John  Brown." 

Atlantic  Monthly.   March,  1860. 
PARKER,  JUDGE  RICHARD.  —  John  Brown's  Trial.    St.  Louis  Globe- Democrat* 

April  8,  1888. 
PHILLIPS,    WILLIAM     A.  —  Three    Interviews    with     John    Brown.    Atlanti(| 

Monthly.     December,  1879. 

Lights  and  Shadows  of  Kansas  History.    Magazine  of  Western  His 
tory.   May,  1890. 
\J  POINDEXTER,  P.  —  The  Capture  and  Execution  of  John  Brown.    Lippincott's.j 

January,  1889. 

ROBINSON'S  "The  Kansas  Conflict."    Reviewed  in  the  Nation,  June  30,  1892. 
/ROCKWELL,  JOEL  CLARK.  —  How  I  Captured  John  Brown.   (A  grossly  erroneous 

narrative.)    Independent.   Vol.  62. 

ROSENGARTEN,  J.  G.  —  John  Brown's  Raid.    Atlantic  Monthly.   June,  1865. 
SANBORN,  F.  B.  — John  Brown  in  Massachusetts.  Atlantic  Monthly.  April,  1872. 

John  Brown  and  His  Friends.    Atlantic  Monthly.    July,  1872. 

The  Virginia  Campaign  of  John  Brown.  Atlantic  Monthly.    December, 

1875- 

A  Concord  Note  Book.    The  Critic.   October,  1895. 

New    Hampshire    Biography    and    Autobiography.  —  Concord,    New 

Hampshire.  July,  1905. 

f Gerrit  Smith  and  John  Brown.    The  Critic.  October,  1905. 

\f The  Real  John  Brown.    Sunday  Magazine.   July  29,  1906. 

The  Early  History  of  Kansas,  1854-1861.    Proceedings  of  Massachu 
setts  Historical  Society.   February,  1907. 

/  SANBORN'S  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown.    Reviewed   in  the  Nation,  October 
15,  1885;  in  The  Dial,  October,  1885;  in  the  (London)  Academy,  February  20, 
'    1886;    in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1886. 

SCOTT,  MARY  A.  — Across  Country  in  a  Van.    Midland  Monthly.    March,  1897. 
SHACKLETON,  ROBERT,  JR.  —  John  Brown's  Raid  and  its  Localities.    National 
Magazine.   April,  1893. 

—  What  Support  did  John  Brown  Rely  Upon?   Magazine  of  American 
History.  April,  1893. 

SHAW,  ALBERT.  —  John  Brown  in  the  Adirondacks.  Review  of  Reviews.  Septem 
ber,  1896. 
//^SHELDON,  CHARLES  M.  —  God's  Angry   Men.      (Poem.)     The    Independent. 

July  21,  1910. 

i^SHOUP,  SAMANTHA  WHIPPLE.  —  The  John   Brown  Song.     The   Independent. 
'        July  21,  1910. 

/SMALL,  CHARLES  H.  —  The  Last  Letter  of  John  Brown.    New  England  Magazine. 
*     July,  1899. 
SMITH,  NARCISSA  MACY.  —  Reminiscences  of  John  Brown.    Midland  Monthly. 

September,  1895. 
SPRING,  LEVERETT  W.  —  John  Brown  at  Dutch  Henry's  Crossing.    Lippincott's. 

January,  1883. 
• Catching  Old  John  Brown.    Overland  Monthly.  June,  1883. 


694  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

[/SPRING,  LEVERETT  W.  —  John  Brown  and  the  Destruction  of  Slavery.     Proceed 
ings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.    March,  1900. 
STEARNS,  FRANK  P.  —  John  Brown  and  his  Eastern  Friends.     New  England 

Magazine.    July,  1910. 
^STIMSON,  JOHN  WARD.  —  An  Overlooked  American  Shelley  [Richard  Realf].  The 

Arena.  July,  1903. 
THAYER,  WILLIAM  [HARDY].  —  The  Black  Strings  of  1859.  Weekly  Indiana  State 

Journal.  August  23,  1893.    [Interview.] 

TODD,  J.  E.  — John  Brown's  Last  Visit  to  Tabor.  Annals  of  Iowa.  April-July,  1898. 
UTTER,   DAVID   N.  —  John  Brown  of  Osawattomie.    North  American  Review. 

November,  1883. 

-' —          —  Review  of  Sanborn's  Life  of  John  Brown.     The  Dial.  October,  1885. 
JVALLANDIGHAM,  E.   N.  —  John  Brown  —  Modern  Hebrew  Prophet.     Putnam's 

Magazine.    December,  1909. 

JVAN  RENSSELAER,  M.  G.  —  Protest  against  erecting  a  Monument  on  the  Adiron 
dack  Farm.    Garden  and  Forest.   January  29,  1896. 
VILLARD,  OSWALD  GARRISON.  —  How  Patrick  Higgins  met  John  Brown.   Harper's 

Weekly.   June  26,  1909. 

WASHINGTON,  B.C.  —  The  Trial  of  John  Brown.    The  Green  Bag.    April,  1899. 
WAYLAND,  JOHN  W.  —  One  of  John  Brown's  Men  [John  H.  Kagi].  The  Pennsyl 
vania  German.   October,  1909. 

WEEKS,  STEPHEN  B.,  Ph.  D.  —  The  Lost  Colony  of  Roanoke:  its  Fate  and  Sur 
vival.  [In  relation  to  L.  S.  Leary].  Papers  of  the  American  Historical  Society. 
October,  1891. 

WELLS,  JOHN  D.  —  The  Scars  of  War  in  the  Shenandoah.  Metropolitan  Maga 
zine.  August,  1898. 

WILLIAMS,  HAROLD  PARKER.  —  Brookline  in  the  Anti-Slavery  Movement.  Brook- 
line  Historical  Society  Publications,  no.  II.    1900. 
WILLSON,  SEELYE  A.  —  Owen  Brown's  Escape  from  Harper's  Ferry.    Magazine 

of  Western  History.   February,  1889. 
,  ^WITHERELL,  L.  R.  —  Old  John   Brown.     A  series  of  articles  in  the  Davenport 

(Iowa)  Gazette  of  February  and  March,  1878. 

WRIGHT,  HARRY  ANDREW.  —  John  Brown  in  Springfield.  New  England  Maga 
zine.  May,  1894. 

'V    WRIGHT,  GENERAL  MARCUS  J.  —  The  Trial  and  Execution  of  John  Brown.  Papers 
of  the  American  Historical  Association.   October,  1890. 

-The  Trial  of  John  Brown,  its  Impartiality  and  Decorum  Vin 
dicated.   Southern  Historical  Society  Papers,  vol.  16. 

'   YOUNG,  GEORGE  W.  —  Story  of  John  Brown's  Capture.    [An  interview.]    The 
.         Confederate  Veteran.   February,  1907. 
y  YOUNG,  REV.  JOSHUA,  D.  D.  —  The  Funeral  of  John  Brown.     New  England 

Magazine.   April,  1904. 
X.  V.  B.  —  John  Brown  at  Akron.  Kansas  Magazine.  Topeka.  October,  1873. 


IV.  AUTHoklTIES  ON  THE  KANSAS  PERIOD 

ADAMS,  F.  G.,  Letter-book  of.   MSS.    In  Kansas  State  Historical  Society  Library. 

ANDREAS,  A.  T.  —  History  of  the  State  of  Kansas.  —  Chicago.    1883.   Pp.  1616. 

ATCHISON,  D.  R.,  Russell,  William  H.,  Anderson,  Jos.  C,  Boone,  A.  G.,  String- 
fellow,  B.  F.,  Buford,  J.  — The  Voice  of  Kansas.  Let  the  South  Respond. 
De  Bow's  Commercial  Review.  August,  1856. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  695 

BAILEY,  JUDGE  L.  D.  — .Border  Ruffian  Troubles  in  Kansas.    Some  Newspaper 

Articles  written  for  the  .tarden  City  Sentinel  and    Kansas  Cultivator.  .  .  . 

Edited  by  Charles  R.  Green.  —  Lyndon,  Kansas.    July,  1899.    Pp»  101. 
•  BLACKMAR,  FRANK  W.  —  Charles  Robinson.    The  First  Free-State  Governor  of 

Kansas.  —  Topeka:  Crane  &  Co.    1900.    Pp.  115. 
BREWERTON,  G.  DOUGLAS.  —  The  War  in  Kansas.  —  New  York:  Derby  and 

Jackson.    1856.    Pp.  400. 

BRIGGS,  C.  W.  —  The  Reign  of  Terror  in  Kansas.  —  Boston.   1856. 
BROWN,  G.  W.  —  The  Rescue  of  Kansas  from  Slavery,  with  False  Claims  Cor 
rected.  —  Rockford,  111. :  The  Author.    1902.   Pp.  160. 

Reminiscences  of  Old  John  Brown.  .  .  .  —  Rockford,  111.:  Abraham 

E.  Smith.   1880.   Pp.  80. 

Reminiscences  of  Gov.  R.  J.  Walker.  —  Rockford,  III. :  Printed  and  Pub 
lished  by  the  Author.    1902.   Pp.  204. 
BROWN,  SPENCER  KELLOGG.  —  His  Life  in  Kansas  and  his  Death  as  a  Spy,  1842- 

1863,  as  disclosed  in  his  diary.  Edited  by  George  Gardner  Smith.  —  New  York: 

D.  Appleton  &  Co.    1903.   Pp.  380. 
COLT,  MRS.  MIRIAM  DAVIS.  —  Went  to  Kansas.  .  .  .  —  Watertown:  L.  Ingalls 

&  Co.   1862.   Pp.  294. 
CONNELLEY,  WILLIAM  ELSEY.  —  An  Appeal  to  the  Record.  —  Topeka,  Kansas: 

Published  by  the  author.   Pp.  130. 

James  Henry  Lane.  — Topeka:  Crane  &  Company.    1899.   Pp.  126. 

CORDLEY,  REV.  RICHARD,  D.  D.  —  History  of  Lawrence,  Kansas.  —  Lawrence, 

Kansas:  E.  F.  Caldwell.    1895.   Pp-  269. 
DOY,  JOHN,    OF    LAWRENCE,    KANSAS,  Narrative    of.  —  New  York:  Thomas 

Halman.    1860.    Pp.  132. 
ELLIOTT,  R.  G.  —  Foot-Notes  on  Kansas  History.  —  Lawrence,  Kansas.   1906. 

Pp.  30.    Pamphlet, 

GIHON.JOHNH. —  Geary  and  Kansas.  —  Phila.:  J.  H.C.  Whiting.  1857.  Pp.348. 
GLADSTONE,  THOMAS  H.  —  Kansas;  or  Squatter  Life  and  Border  Warfare  in  the 

Far  West.  —  London:  G.  Routledge  &  Co.    1857.   Pp.  295. 
GOODLANDER,  C.  W.  —  Memoirs  and   Recollections  of  the  Early  Days  of  Fort 

Scott.  —  Fort  Scott,  Kansas.  1899.   Pp.  79. 

HIGGINSON,  THOMAS  WENTWORTH.  —  A  Ride  Through  Kansas.  —  Pamphlet  pri- 
,  •       vately  printed.    1857.   Pp.  24. 

HOLLOWAY,  J.  N. —  History  of  Kansas.  .  .  .  —  Lafayette,  Ind.:  James,  Emmons 

&  Co.    1868.   Pp.  584. 

HOWARD  REPORT.  —  Report  of  the  Special  Committee  appointed  to  Investigate 
\    the  Troubles  in  Kansas.  .  .  .  —  34th  Congress,  1st  Session.   Report  No.  200. — 

Washington:   Cornelius  Wendell.    1856.    Pp.  1206. 
HUGHES,  THOMAS.  —  A  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  United  States,  by  J.  M. 

Ludlow,  to  which  is  added  "The  Struggle  for  Kansas,"  by  Thomas  Hughes.  — 

London:  Macmillan  &  Co.    1862.   Pp.  404. 
JOHNSON,  OLIVER.  —  The  Abolitionists  Vindicated,  in  a  Review  of  Eli  Thayer's 

Paper  on  the  N.  E.  Emigrant  Aid  Company.  —  Worcester:  F.  P.  Rice.  1887, 
JOHNSON,  W.  A.  —  History  of  Anderson  County,  Kansas.  —  Garnett,  Kansas: 

Kauffman  &  Her.    1877.   Pp.  289. 
•   KANSAS.  —  Report  of  Commissioners  of  Kansas  Territory.   Printed  in  Reports  of 

Committees  of  House   of  Representatives,  36th  Congress,  2d  session.    Part  I, 

vols.  2  and  3.  —  March  2,  1861.   Washington,  1861. 

KANSAS.  —  [An]  Illustrated  Historical  Atlas  of  Miami  County,  Kansas.  —  Phila 
delphia:  Edwards  Brothers.   1878.   Pp.  60. 


696  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


•^  KANSAS.  —  History  of  the  New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Company.  ...  —  Bos 
ton:  John  Wilson  and  Son.   1862.   Pp.  33. 

KANSAS.  —  The   Kansas   Memorial.  .  .  .  Charles  S.  Gleed,   Editor.  —  Kansas 
City,  Mo.:  Ramsey,  Millett  &  Hudson.   1880.   Pp.  261. 

•  KANSAS.  — Kansas  State  Historical  Society  Publications  and  Collections.   10  vols. 
KANSAS.   Minutes  of  the  Big  Springs  Convention.    No  place.     1855. 

•  KANSAS.  —  The  Statutes  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas.  ...  —  Shawnee  M.  L. 

School,  Kansas:  John  T.  Brady,  Public  Printer.    1855.    Pp.  1509. 
KANSAS.  —  U.  S.  Biographical  Dictionary,  Kansas  Volume.  —  Chicago  and  Kan 
sas  City:  S.  Lewis  &  Co.   1879.   Pp.  883. 

*- KANSAS  STATE  PAPERS.  —  Executive  Papers,  1855-1859.  —  Kansas  State  His 
torical  Society  Archives.   MSS. 

Records  of  the  Adjutant-General.     State  House,  Topeka. 

MARTIN,  GEORGE  W.  —  The  First  Two  Years  of  Kansas.  ...  —  Topeka,  Kan 
sas:  State  Printing  Office.   1907.   Pp.  30. 

•  MISSOURI. —  History  of  Clay  and  Platte  Counties,  Missouri.     (No  author.)  — 

St.  Louis:  National  Historical  Company.   1885.   Pp.  1121. 

•  PAXTON,  W.  M.  —  Annals  of  Platte  County,  Missouri.  —  Kansas  City,  Mo.: 

Hudson- Kimberly  Publishing  Company.    1897.    Pp.  1182. 
PHILLIPS,  WILLIAM  A.  —  The  Conquest  of  Kansas  by  Missouri  and  Her  Allies. — 
Boston:  Phillips,  Sampson  &  Co.    1856.   Pp.  414. 

•  REESE,  Louis  A.  —  History  of  the  Admission  of  Kansas  as  a  State.   MSS. 
ROBINSON,   CHARLES.  —  The   Kansas   Conflict.  —  Lawrence,   Kansas:    Journal 

Publishing  Company.    1898.   Pp.  487. 
ROBINSON,  SARA  T.  L.  —  Kansas:  its  Interior  and  Exterior  Life.  ...  —  Boston: 

Crosby,  Nichols  and  Company.   1856.   Pp.  366. 
ROBLEY,  T.  F.  History  of  Bourbon  County,  Kansas,  to  the  Close  of  1865.   Fort 

Scott,  Kansas:  Published  by  the  Author.    1894.  Pp.  210. 
ROPES,  HANNAH  ANDERSON.  —  Six  Month*  in  Kansas,  by  a  Lady.  —  Boston: 

John  P.  Jewett  &  Co.   1856.   Pp.  231. 
„.  SMITH,  SAMUEL  C.  —  Kansas  and  the  Emigrant  Aid  Co.;  Reply  to  "T.  W.  H." 

in  Boston  Advertiser.   1903.   Pp.  35. 
SPEER,  JOHN.  —  Life  of   Gen.  James  H.  Lane.  —  Garden  City,  Kansas:  John 

Speer,  Printer.    1897.   Pp.  352. 

—  Perversions  of  History.  —  Archives  of  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 
MSS. 
v  SPRING,  LEVERETT  W.  —  Kansas,  The  Prelude  to  the  War  for  the  Union. — 

Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company.   1885.   Pp.  334. 
.§UMNER,  CHARLES.  The  Crime  against  Kansas.    Speech  in  the  Senate  of  the 

United  States,  May  19-20, 1856.  Washington:  Buell&  Blanchard.  1856.  Pp.  32. 
THAYER,  ELI.  —  A  History  of  the  Kansas  Crusade.  ...  —  New  York:  Harper 

&  Brother.   1889.   Pp.  294. 
»  THREE  YEARS  ON  THE  KANSAS  BORDER,  BY  A  CLERGYMAN.  —  New  York  and 

Auburn:  Miller,  Orton  &  Mulligan.    1856.   Pp.  240. 
TOMLINSON,  WILLIAM  P.  —  Kansas  in  Eighteen  Fifty-Eight.  —  New  York:  H. 

Dayton.    1859.   Pp.  304. 

TUTTLE,  CHARLES  R.  —  History  of  Kansas.  —  Madison,  Wisconsin,  and  Law 
rence,  Kansas:  Interstate  Book  Company.    1876.   Pp.  708. 
WAR,  SECRETARY  OF.  —  Official  Report  for  1856.  Exec.  Doc.  No.  I,  34th  Con 
gress,  3d  Session,  House  of  Representatives. 

WEBB,  THOMAS  H.  —  Information  for  Kansas  Immigrants.  —  Boston:  Alfred 
L  Mudge.  1855.  Pp.  24.     . 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  697 

WEBB,  THOMAS  H.  —  Scrap-Books  of  Kansas  happenings.  In  Kansas  His 
torical  Society  Library. 

WILDER,  DANIEL  W.  —  The  Annals  of  Kansas.  —  Topeka,  Kansas:  George  W. 

Martin.   1875.   Pp.  691. 

•  WILLIAMS,  R.  H.  —  With  the  Border  Ruffians  .  .  .  edited  by  E.  W.  Williams.  — 
New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Company.   1907.  Pp.  478. 

WILSON,  HENRY.  —  State  of  Affairs  in  Kansas.  Speech  of  Henry  Wilson  in  the 
Senate  February  18,  1856.  Washington:  Republican  Association  of  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia.  1856.  Pp.  15. 

WINKLEY,  J.  W.  John  Brown  the  Hero.  —  Boston:  James  K.  West  Company. 
1905.  Pp.  126. 

WOOD,  MARGARET  L.  —  Memorial  of  Samuel  N.  Wood.  —  Kansas  City:  Hudson- 
Kimberly  Publishing  Company.  1892.  Pp.  284. 


V.  BOOKS,  PAMPHLETS  AND  DOCUMENTS  RELATING  PARTICU 
LARLY  TO  THE  HARPER'S  FERRY  RAID 

ADAM,  L.  —  La  Question  Americaine.  —  Nancy.   1861.  Pp.  72. 
V^o ANDERSON,  OSBORN  P.  —  A  Voice  from  Harper's  Ferry.  .  .  .  —  Boston:  The 

Author.   1861.   Pp.  72. 
L'ANGLE-BEAUMANOIR,  RAOUL  DE.  —  La  Correspondance  de  Harper's  Ferry.  — 

Paris:  M.  de  Brunkhoff.   1886.   Pp.  271. 
ANTI-ABOLITION  TRACT,  No.  3.  —  The  Abolition  Conspiracy  to  Destroy  the 

Union.  —  New  York:  Van  Evrie,  Horton  &  Co.   1863. 
ANTI-SLAVERY  HISTORY  of  the  John  Brown  Year,  being  the  Twenty-Seventh 

Annual  Report  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  —  New  York:  American 
'    Anti-Slavery  Society.   1861.   Pp.  337. 
ANTI-SLAVERY  TRACT,  No.  7.  NEW  SERIES.  —  Testimonies  of  Capt.  John  Brown 

at  Harper's  Ferry.  ...  —  New  York:  The  American  Anti-Slavery  Society. 

1860.  Pp.  16. 
ARBELLI,  H.  P.  —  John  Brown,  ou  Le  Pendu  de  Victor  Hugo.  —  Bordeaux: 

Durand.   1861.   Pp.  8. 

AVEY,  ELIJAH.  —  The  Capture  and  Execution  of  John  Brown,  a  Tale  of  Martyr 
dom.  ...  —  Chicago:  The  Hyde  Park  Bindery.   1906.   Pp.  144. 
BAGBY,  G.  W.  —  1860-1880.    John  Brown  and  William  Mahone.    A  Historical 

parallel  foreshadowing  civil  trouble.  —  Richmond,  Va.:  C.  F.  Johnston.    1880. 
r    Pp.23. 
BARKER,  JOSEPH.  —  Slavery  and  Civil  War,  or  The  Harper's  Ferry  Insurrection. 

With  a  Review  of  Discourses  on  the  Subject  by  Rev.  W.  H.  Furness,  Hon.  J.  R. 

Giddings,  and  Wendell  Phillips,  Esqre.  —  (Philadelphia.     1860?) 
BOTTS,  JOHN   MINOR.  —  Interesting  and   Important    Correspondence  between 

Opposition  Members  of  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  and  Hon.  John  Minor  Botts, 

January  17,  1860.  —  Washington:  Lem.  Towers.   1860.   Pp.  16. 
BRANDT,   ISAAC.  —  History  of   John  Brown.  —  Des    Moines:  Watters-Talbott 

Printing  Company.    1895.   Pp.  26. 
BROWN,  CAPT.  JOHN,  The  Life,  Trial,  and  Conviction  of.  —  New  York:  Robert 

M.  DeWitt.     1859.     Pp.  108. 
The  Life,  Trial,  and  Execution  of.  —  New  York:  Robert  M.  DeWitt. 

1859.   Pp.  108. 

CHANNING,  WILLIAM  ELLERY.  —  John  Brown,  and  the  Heroes  of  Harper's  Ferry. 
^  —  Boston:  Cupples,  Upham  &  Company.   1886.  Pp.  143. 


698  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHANNING,  WILLIAM  ELLERY. —  The  Burial  of  John  Brown. —  Boston :  1 860.    Pp.  8. 

CHAWNER,  ROBERT.  —  The  Life  of  John  Brown.  (In  verse.)  —  Washington, 
D.  C.:  Published  by  the  author.  1896.  Pp.  16.  f 

CHEVALIER,  HENRI  EMILE,  ET  PHARAON  F.  —  Un  Drame  Esclavagiste.  Pro 
logue  de  la  Secession  Americaine.  ...  —  Paris:  Charlieu  et  Huillery.  1864. 
Pp.  60. 

CHILD,  LYDIA  MARIA,  Correspondence  between,  and  Governor  Wise  and  Mrs. 
Mason,  of  Virginia.  —  Boston:  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  1860.  Pp.  28. 

COOK,  JOHN  E.,  CONFESSIONS  OF,  Brother-in-Law  of  Governor  A.  P.  Willard,  of 
Indiana.  .  .  .  Published  for  the  Benefit  of  Samuel  C.  Young,  a  Non-Slave 
holder,  who  is  Permanently  Disabled  by  a  Wound  Received  in  Defense  of 

r    Southern  Institutions.  —  Charlestown:  D.  Smith  Eichelberger.    1859.    Pp.  16. 

DREW,  THOMAS.  —  The  John  Brown  Invasion:  an  Authentic  History  of  the  Har 
per's  Ferry  Tragedy.  —  Boston:  J.  Campbell.  1860.  Pp.  112. 

FANATICISM  AND  ITS  RESULTS:  Fact  versus  Fancies.  —  By  a  Southerner.  —  Balti 
more:  Joseph  Robinson.  1860.  Pp.  36. 

FERNAND,  JACQUES.  —  John  Brown  et  ses  amis  Stephens,  Copp,  Green  et  Cop- 
lands  Morts  pour  rAffranchissement  des  Noirs.  —  Paris:  C.  Vanier.  1861.  Pp. 
15.  (Verse.) 

FOUQUIER,  A.  —  John  Brown,  I'Abolitioniste.  —  Paris:  Laine  et  Havard.  1861. 
Pp.  16. 

GARRISON,  WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  —  The  Preludes  of  Harper's  Ferry.  —  From  An- 
dover  Review  of  December,  1890,  and  January,  1891,  privately  printed  as  a 
pamphlet.  1891. 

[GARRISON,  WILLIAM  LLOYD].  — The  New  "Reign  of  Terror"  in  the  Slave-holding 
States  1859-1860.  —  New  York:  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  1860.  Pp. 
144. 

—  A  Fresh  Catalogue  of  Southern  Outrages  upon  Northern  Citizens.  — 
New  York:  American  Anti-Slavery  Society.     1860.    Pp.  72. 

GLASGOW,  J.  EWING.  —  The  Harper's  Ferry  Insurrection.  —  Edinburgh:  Myles 
MacPhail.  1860.  Pp.  47. 

GROVE,  S.  E.  —  Souvenir  and  Guide-Book  of  Harper's  Ferry,  Antietam  and 
South  Mountain  Battlefields.  —  Hagerstown,  Maryland.  1905.  Pp.  102. 

HARPER'S  FERRY,  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Bloody  Outbreak  at.  —  Published  by 
direction  of  the  New  York  Democratic  Vigilant  Association.  New  York.  1859. 

HOVENDEN.  —  Last  Moments  of  John  Brown.  Painted  by  Thomas  Hovenden, 
M.  A.,  1884.  Etched  by  Thomas  Hovenden,  M.  A.,  1885.  (A  brief  sketch  of  the 
subject  of  the  painting,  and  opinions  of  the  press  concerning  the  painting.)  — 
Philadelphia:  G.  Gebbie.  1885.  Pp.  16. 

HUGO,  VICTOR.  —  John  Brown.  —  Paris:  E.  Dentu.    1861.    Pp.8. 

—  Letter  from  General  C.  F.  Henningsen  in  reply  to  the  letter  of.  —  New 
York:  Davies  and  Kent.    1860.   Pp.  32. 

HUGO,  VICTOR,  AND  STEPHENS,  MRS.  ANN  S.  —  Victor  Hugo's  letter  on  John 
Brown  with  Mrs.  Ann  S.  Stephens's  Reply.  —  New  York:  Irwin  P.  Beadle  & 
Co.  1860.  Pp.  24. 

INSURRECTION  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY,  THE,  and  a  Faithful  History  of  Know  Nothing- 
ism  and  Black  Republicanism  and  their  Proposed  Union  under  the  Irrepressible 
Conflict  Doctrine  of  Seward  and  his  Allies,  North  and  South.  —  Baltimore. 
1859.  Pp.  12. 

JOHN  BROWN  RAID,  THE,  Special  Order  Book  of.  MSS.  —  Virginia  State  Library, 
Department  of  Archives  and  History. 

JOSEPHUS,  JUNIOR  (JOSEPH  BARRY).  — The  Annals  of  Harper's  Ferry.  —  Mar- 
tinsburg,  West  Virginia.  1872.  Pp.  126. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  699 

KAPP,  F.  —  Die  erste  politische  Hinrichtung  in  den  vereinigten  Staaten,  John 

Brown.     Demokratische  Studien.  —  Hamburg.    1860-1861.   Vol.  I. 
LEECH,  REV.  SAMUEL  VANDERLIP.  —  The  Raid  of  John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry 

as  I  Saw  It.  —  Washington:  Published  by  the  Author.    1909.   Pp.  24. 
LOGAN,  FRANK  G.  —  The  Logan  Emancipation  Cabinet  of  Letters  and  Relics  of 

John  Brown  and  Abraham  Lincoln.      Reprinted  from  Chicago    Tribune.  — 

Chicago.    1892.   Pp.  40. 
LUCIENNES,  VICTOR.  —  Le  Gibet  de  John  Brown.  —  Paris:  Castel.   1861.   Pp.  8. 

(Poem.) 
MACDONALD.  —  The  Two  Rebellions;  or,  Treason  Unmasked.  By  a  Virginian.  — 

Richmond:  Smith,  Bailey  &  Co.    1865.   Pp.  144. 

MARQUAND,  HENRI.  —  John  Brown.  —  Paris:  Dentu.   1860.   Pp.  246. 
MARYLAND  STATE  PAPERS.  —  Correspondence  Relating  to  the  Insurrection  at 

Harper's  Ferry,    iyth  October,    1859.     (Document   Y.) — Annapolis;   B.   H. 

Richardson.    1860.   Pp.  79. 
---MASON  REPORT.  —  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  of  the  Senate  appointed  to 

inquire  into  the  late  invasion  and  seizure  of  the  public  property  at  Harper's 

Ferry.  —  Rep.  Com.  No.  278,  36th  Congress,  ist  Session. 
MOORE,  CLEON.  —  John  Brown's  Attack  on  Harper's  Ferry.  —  Point  Pleasant, 

West  Virginia:  Mrs.  Livia  Simpson  Poffenbarger,  Editor  and  Publisher.    1904. 

Pp.  22. 
[MooRE,  WM.  H.]  —  Startling  Incidents  &  Developments  of  Osawotomy  Brown's 

Insurrectory  and  Treasonable  Movements  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Virginia,  October 

1 7th,  1859.    By  a  Citizen  of  Harper's  Ferry.  —  Baltimore:  John  W.  Woods, 

Printer.    1859.   Pp.  72. 
PARKER,  REV.  THEODORE.  —  John  Brown's  Expedition  Reviewed  in  a  Letter 

from  Rev.  Theodore  Parker  at  Rome  to  Francis  Jackson,  Boston.  —  Boston: 

The  Fraternity.    1860.   Pp.  19. 

PATE,  H.  CLAY.  —  John  Brown  as  Viewed  by  H.  Clay  Pate.  —  New  York:  Pub 
lished  by  the  Author.    1859.   Pp.  48. 
PRICE,  WILLIAM  THOMPSON.  —  "Old  John  Brown  of  Harper's  Ferry;"  a  drama 

in  five  acts.  —  (New  York?  1895?)   Pp.  8. 
PROWE,  A.  —  John  Osawatomie  Brown,  der  Negerheiland.   Festschrift  zur  ersten 

sakular  Feier  der  Vereinigten  Staaten  von  Nord  Amerika.  —  Braunschweig: 

W.  Bracke,  Jr.   1876.   Pp.  148. 
REDPATH,  JAMES.  —  Echoes  of  Harper's  Ferry.  —  Boston:  Thayer  &  Eldridge. 

1860.   Pp.  513. 
REPORT:  A  FULL  AND  AUTHENTIC  REPORT  of  the  Famous  Case  of  The  People, 

upon  the  relation  of  John  Brown,  praying  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  release 

his  soul  from  the  custody  of  Lucifer  Diavolo,  Respondent.    Pp.  8. 
RICHMAN,  IRVING  B.  —  John  Brown  Among  the  Quakers.  —  Des  Moines:  His 
torical  Department  of  Iowa.    1894.   Pp.  239. 
ROBINSON,  WILLIAM  S.  —  "Warrington"  Pen- Portraits.  —  Boston:   Edited  and 

Published  by  Mrs.  W.  S.  Robinson.    1887.   Pp.  587. 
SANBORN,  F.  B.  —  Memoirs  of  John  Brown,  written  for  Rev.  Samuel  Orcutt's 

History  of  Torrington,   Ct.  .  .  .  with  Memorial  verses,  by  William  Ellery 

Channing.  —  Concord,  Massachusetts.   January,  1878.   Pp.  107. 
SCHILLING,  JOHN  L.  —  The  Three  Emancipators.  —  Bellaire,  Ohio.  1892.  Pp.  59. 
The  Story  of  Jo>hn  Brown's  Raid  and  Capture  and  the  Founding  of 

Historic  Harper's  Ferryl — Toledo,  Ohio.    1895.    Pp.  12. 
SWAYZE,  MRS.  J.  C.  —  Ossawatomie  Brown,  or  the  Insurrection  at  Harper's  Ferry. 

A  Drama  in  Three  Acts.  New  York:  Samuel  French.     1859. 


7oo  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

TODD,  REV.  JOHN.  —  Reminiscences,  or  Early  Settlement  and  Growth  of  Western 
Iowa.  —  £)es  Moines:  Historical  Department  of  Iowa.  1906. 

TRIALS;  REMARKABLE  TRIALS  OF  ALL  COUNTRIES,  with  the  Evidence  and  Speeches 
of  Counsel.  —  New  York:  S.  S.  Peloubet  &  Co.  1882.  Pp.  436. 

VALENTINE,  MANN  S.  —  The  Mock  Auction.  Ossawatomie  Sold.  —  Richmond: 
J.  W.  Randolph.  1860.  Pp.  261. 

VESINIER,  PIERRE.  —  Le  Martyr  de  la  Liberte"  des  negres,  ou  John  Brown  Le 
Christ  des  Noirs.  —  Berlin:  Jules  Abelsdorff.  1864.  Pp.  403. 

VILLEROI,  B.  De.  —  Subscription  for  the  Erection  of  a  Monument  to  the  Memory 
of  the  Brave  and  Unfortunate  John  Brown.  —  Philadelphia:  Jones  &  Thacher. 
1867.  Pp.  8. 

VIRGINIA  STATE  PAPERS.  —  Address  of  the  Hon.  C.  G.  Memminger,  Special 
Commissioner  from  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  before  the  Assembled  Authori 
ties  of  the  State  of  Virginia.  —  Doc.  No.  LV  n.  January  19,  1860.  Pp.  43. 

Calendar  of  Virginia  State  Papers,  vol.  II. 

—  Court  of  Appeals  of  Virginia.  Commonwealth  vs.  Brown.  —  Richmond. 
1859.    Pp.  16. 

—  Document  No.  I.    Appendix  to  Message  I.    Documents  Relative  to 
the  Harper's  Ferry  Invasion.  —  Richmond.     December,  1859. 

Document  No.  I.  Appendix  to  Message  2.  —  Richmond.    December, 

1859. 

Report  of  the  Superintendent  of  the  Virginia  Military  Institute  to  the 

Board  of  Visitors.   Doc.  No.  xxviu.  January  20,  1860. 

—  Communication  from  the  Governor  of  Virginia  enclosing  letters  from 
,    the  Governor  of  Ohio,  relative  to  requisitions  for  fugitives  from  justice.   Doc. 

No.  Lix.   March  14,  1860. 

—  Report  of  the  Joint  Committee  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia 
on  the  Harper's  Ferry  Outrages.     Doc.  No.  xxxi.    January  26,  1860.    Pp.24. 

—  Executive's   Letter   Book,    1856-1860.  —  Virginia  State  Library,  De 
partment  of  Archives  and  History. 

—  Journal  of  the  House  of  Delegates  of  Virginia.     1859-1860. 
VIRGINIA  STATE  PUBLICATIONS.  —  List  of  Field  Officers,  Regiments  and  Battalions 

in  the  Confederate  States  Army.   1861-1865. 

VON  HOLST,  DR.  HERMANN.  —  John  Brown.  Edited  by  Frank  Preston  Stearns. 
—  Boston:  Cupples  and  Hurd.  1889.  Pp.  232. 

WILLIAMS,  EDWARD  W.  —  The  Views  and  Meditations  of  John  Brown.  —  Wash 
ington:  The  Author.  1893.  Pp.  16. 

WILLIAMS,  JAMES,  late  United  States  Minister  to  Turkey.  —  Letters  on  Slavery 
from  the  Old  World;  written  during  the  Canvass  for  the  Presidency  of  the 

.  United  States  in  1860.  To  which  are  added  a  Letter  to  Lord  Brougham  on  the 

;  John  Brown  Raid.  —  Nashville,  Tenn. :  Southern  Methodist  Publishing  House. 
1861.  Pp.  321. 

WRIGHT,  HENRY  C.  —  The  Natick  Resolution.  —  Boston.    1859.    Pp.  36. 

ZITTLE,  CAPT.  JOHN  H.  —  A  Correct  History  of  the  John  Brown  Invasion. 
Edited  and  published  by  his  widow.  —  Hagerstown,  Maryland.  1905.  Pp.  259. 


VI.  REPORTS  OF  IMPORTANT  MEETINGS  DEALING  WITH  THE 
RAID  AND  EXECUTION' 

AMERICAN  SLAVERY.  —  Demonstration  in  favor  of  Dr.  Cheever,  in  Scotland. 
^     Letter  of  Sympathy  from  Distinguished  Clergymen  and  other  Gentlemen. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  701 

Speeches  at  Meetings  in  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  —  New  York:  John  A.  Gray. 

1860.   Pp.  17. 
E  MARTYRDOM  OF  JOHN  BROWN.  —  The  Proceedings  of  a  Public  Meeting 

Held  in  London  on  the  2nd  December,  1863,  to  Commemorate  the  Fourth 

Anniversary  of  John  Brown's  Death.  —  London:  Emancipation  Society.   1864. 

Pp.  23. 
SPEECHES  OF  HON.  A.  C.  BARSTOW,  Rev.  George  T.  Day,  Rev.  A.  Woodbury. 

Hon.  Thomas  Davis,  and  Resolutions  Adopted  at  a  Meeting  of  Citizens  held 

in  Providence,  R.  I.  ...  on  the  Occasion  of  the  Execution  of  John  Brown.  — 

Providence:  Amsbury  &  Co.    1860.    Pp.  32. 
BOSTON  COURIER  Report  of  the  Union  Meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Thursday, 

December  8,  1859.  —  Boston:     Published   by   Clark,    Fellows  &   Company. 

I859-   PP- 32. 
GREAT  UNION  MEETING.  —  Philadelphia,   December  7,   1859.  —  Philadelphia: 

Cressy  and  Marks.    1859.   Pp.  59. 
REPORT  of^the  Public  Meeting  held  in  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  December  2f 

1859,  on  the  Occasion  of  the  Execution  of  John  Brown.  —  See  The  Liberator 
(Boston)  for  December  9  and  16,  1859. 

REPORT  of  the  Union  Meeting  held  in  Brewster's  Hall,  New  Haven.  .  .  .  Decem 
ber  14,  1859.  —  New  Haven:  Printed  by  Thomas  J.  Stafford.  1860.  Pp.  52. 

A  TRIBUTE  of  Respect  Commemorative  of  the  Worth  and  Sacrifice  of  John 
Brown.  ...  It  being  a  full  Report  of  ...  a  meeting  held  in  the  Melodeon. 
...  —  Cleveland :  Published  for  the  Benefit  of  the  Widows  and  Families  of 
the  Revolutionists  of  Harper's  Ferry.  1859.  Pp.  62. 

THE  REPUBLIC  AND  ITS  CRISES.  —  Speeches  of  Hon.  Edward  Everett,  at  the 
Boston  Union  Meeting,  December  8,  1858,  and  of  ex-Gov.  Thos.  H.  Seymour 
and  Professor  Samuel  Eliot,  of  Trinity  College,  at  the  Hartford  Union  Meeting, 
December  14,  1859.  — January,  1860.  Pp.  28. 

OFFICIAL  REPORTS  of  the  Great  Union  Meeting  in  the  New  York  Academy  of 
Music,  December  19,  1859.  —  New  York:  Davies  &  Kent.  1859.  Pp.  176. 

VII.  IMPORTANT  SPEECHES  AND  ADDRESSES  ON  JOHN  BROWN 
AS  SEPARATELY  PUBLISHED 

ANDERSON,  BENNING,  PRESTON.  —  Addresses  delivered  before  the  Virginia  State 
Convention  by  Hon.  Fulton  Anderson,  Commissioner  from  Mississippi,  Hon. 
Henry  L.  Benning,  Commissioner  from  Georgia,  and  Hon.  John  S.  Preston, 
Commissioner  from  South  Carolina,  February,  1861.  —  Richmond:  Wyatt  M. 
Elliott,  Printer.  1861.  Pp.  64. 

ANDREW,  JOHN  A.  —  Speeches  of,  at  Hingham  and  Boston,  together  with  his 
Testimony  before  the  Harper's  Ferry  Committee  of  the  Senate.  ...  —  Boston. 

1860.  Pp.  16. 

BARKER,  JOSEPH.  —  Address:  Slavery  and  Civil  War,  or  the  Harper's  Ferry 

Insurrection,  with  a  Review  of  Discourses  on  the  Subject  by  Rev.    W.  H. 

Furness,  Hon.  J.  R.  Giddings,  and  Wendell  Phillips,  Esq.  —  Phila.     1860. 
VBEECHER,  HENRY  WARD.  —  Patriotic  Address;   Edited  by  John  R.  Howard. — 

New  York:  Fords,  Howard  and  Hulbert.    1889.   Pp.  857. 
BIERCE,  GEN.  L.  V.  —  Address  delivered  at  Akron,  Ohio,  on  the  Evening  of  the 

Execution  of  John  Brown.  .  .  .  —  Columbus,  Ohio.    1865.    Pp.  n. 
^CLARKE,  DR.  JAMES  FREEMAN.   An  Address  before  the  Massachusetts  Historical 

Society    on   John    Brown.  —  Massachusetts   Historical   Society   Proceedings, 

June,  1884. 


702 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


DOUGLASS,   FREDERICK.  —  John  Brown:  An  address  ...   at  the  Fourteenth 

Anniversary  of  Storer  College.  —  Dover,  N.  H.  1881.   Pp.  28. 
V/FURNESS,  HORACE  HOWARD.  —  Historical  Address  delivered  in  Connection  with 

the  Installation  of  the  Reverend  Charles  E.  St.  John  as  Minister  of  the  First 

Unitarian  Church  of  Philadelphia.  ...  —  Phila.    1908.    Pp.  20. 
HALL  (N.).   The  Iniquity  (Brown's  execution);  —  The  Man  (Brown),  the  Deed, 

the  Event  (two  addresses). —  Boston.    1859. 
\/  LAWRENCE,  AMOS  A.  —  An  Address  before  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings.   May,  1884. 
RAMEAU,  S.  —  Oration  on  John  Brown.  —  Aux  Payes.    1860.    Pp.  7. 
\/  ROE,  ALFRED  S.  —  John  Brown:  a  Retrospect.  —  Worcester.   Pp.  25.    (A  eulogy 

read  before  the  Worcester  Society  of  Antiquities,  December,  1884.) 
Ross,  ALEXANDER  MILTON.  —  Speech,  delivered  October  21,  1864,  at  the  Annual 

Meeting  of  the  Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Human  Slavery  held  in  Montreal.  — 

Montreal:  John  Lovell.    1864.   Pp.  8. 
J  SHEARER,  W.  J.  —  John  Brown's  Raid.    An  address  delivered  at  the  Hamilton 

Library  (Carlisle,  Pa.),  January  17,  1905.  —  Pamphlet.    Pp.  12. 
SWINTON,  JOHN.  —  Old  Ossawattomie  Brown.     Speech  .  .  .  delivered  in  Turn 

Theatre,  New  York,  December  2,  1881.   Pp.  n. 
TRUMBULL,  LYMAN.  —  Remarks  of  Hon.  Lyman  Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  on  Seizure 

of  Arsenals  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Virginia,  and  Liberty,  Missouri.  .  .  .  Delivered 

in  the  U.  S.  Senate,  December  6,  7,  and  8,  1859. — Washington:  Buell  and 

Blanchard.  1859.    Pp.  16. 
VOORHEES,    HON.    DANIEL   W.  —  Speech   delivered   at   Charlestown,   Virginia : 

November  8,  1859,  upon  the  trial  of  John  E.  Cook.  —  Tallahassee:  Printed 

by  Dyke  and  Carlisle.    1860.   Pp.  28. 

—  Addresses  of  Hon.  Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  of   Indiana;   comprising  his 

Argument  delivered  at  Charlestown,  Virginia,  November  8,  1859,   upon  the 

Trial  of  John  E.  Cook,  for  Treason  and  Murder.  —  Richmond,  Virginia:  West 

&  Johnson.    1861.    Pp.  55. 

WADE,  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.  —  The  Invasion  of  Harper's  Ferry.  Speech  de 
livered  in  the  United  States  Senate,  December  14,  1859.  —  Washington:  Buell 

&  Blanchard.  1859.  Pp.  8. 

VIII.  SOME  TYPICAL  SERMONS 

V  AMES,  REV.  CHARLES  GORDON.  —  The  Death  of  John  Brown.  .  .  .  Delivered  at 
Bloomington,  111.,  December  4,  1859.  Reprinted  in  1909.  Pp.  38. 

CHEEVER,  REV.  GEORGE  BARRELL.  —  "The  Curse  of  God  against  Political 
Atheism."  --  Boston:  Walker,  Wise  &  Co.  1859.  Pp.  24. 

CLARKE,  REV.  JAMES  FREEMAN.  Causes  and  Consequences  of  the  Affair  at  Har 
per's  Ferry.  A  Sermon  preached  in  the  Indiana  Place  Chapel  on  Sunday 
morning,  November  6,  1859.  —  Boston:  Walker,  Wise  &  Co.  1859.  Pp.  14. 

COLVER,  REV.  NATHANIEL,  D.  D.  —  The  Harper's  Ferry  Tragedy:  a  symptom  of 
,  disease  in  the  heart  of  the  nation.  .  .  .  —  Cincinnati.  1860.  Pp.  16. 

FURNESS,  W.  H.  —  Put  up  thy  Sword.  A  Discourse  delivered  before  Theodore 
Parker's  Society  at  the  Music  Hall,  Boston,  Sunday,  March  II,  1860.  Boston: 
R.  F.  Walcutt.  i860.  Pp.  23. 

GREGORY,  REV.  JOHN.  -x*.  The  Life  and  Character  of  John  Brown.  ...  —  Pitts 
burgh:  A.  A.  Anderson.  1860.  Pp.  16. 

GULLIVER,  REV.  J.  P. —  The  Lioness  and  Her  Whelps.  A  Sermon  on  Slavery. 
Preached  in  the  Broadway  Congregational  Church,  Norwich,  Connecticut,  De- 

:    cember  18,  1859.  —  Norwich:  Manning,  Perry  &  Co.    1860.   Pp.  12. 


J 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  703 

HALL,  NATHANIEL.  —  Two  Sermons  on  Slavery  and  its  Hero- Victim.  —  Boston: 

John  Wilson  &  Son.    1859.   Pp.  37. 
NEWHALL,  REV.  FALES  HENRY.  —  A  Funeral  Discourse  occasioned  by  the  Death 

of  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie.  ...  —  Boston:  J.  M.  Hewes.  1859.    Pp.  22. 
PATTON,  REV.  VV.  W.  —  The  Execution  of  John   Brown  .  .  .  Delivered  .  .  . 

December  4,  1859.  —  Chicago:  Church,  Goodman  &  Gushing.  1859.  Pp.  14. 
RICE,  REV.  DANIEL.  —  Harper's  Ferry  and  Its  Lesson.  —  Lafayette,  Ind.:  Luse 

&  Wilson.    1860.   Pp.  18. 
TAFT,  REV.  S.  H.  —  Discourse  on  the  Character  and  Death  of  John  Brown, 

delivered   at   Martensburgh,    New    York,    December   12,    1859.  ...  —  Des 

Moines:  Carter  &  Hussey.  1872. 
TOWER,    REV.   PHILO.  —  Slavery  Unmasked  and  the   Invasion  of  Kansas.  — 

Rochester.    1856. 
TUFTS,  REV.  SAMUEL  N.  —  Slavery  and  the  Death  of  John  Brown.   Preached  in 

Auburn  Hall,  Auburn,  December  n,  1859. —  Lewiston.    1859.    Pp.  20. 
WHEELOCK,  REV.  EDWIN  M.  —  A  Sermon  for  the  Times.    Preached  at  Music 

Hall,  Boston,  Sunday,  November  27,  1859.  —  Boston:  The  Fraternity.  1859. 
YOUNG,  JOSHUA.  —  Man  Better  than  a  Sheep:  A  Sermon  preached  Thanksgiving 
;  Day,  November  24,  1859.  —  Burlington,  N.  H.:  E.  A.  Fuller.  1859.  Pp.  22., 


IX.  BIOGRAPHIES,  AUTOBIOGRAPHIES,  AND   REMINISCENCES  OF 
CORRELATED  OR  IMPORTANT  PERSONAGES 

ANDREW,  JOHN  A.,  The  Life  of.  —  By   Henry  Greenleaf   Pearson.  —  Boston: 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1904.   2  vols. 
ASHBY,  GENERAL  TURNER,  Memoirs  of,  and  his  Compeers.  —  By  Rev.  James  B. 

Avirett.  —  Baltimore:  Selby  and  Dulaney.    1867.   Pp.  408. 
BOWDITCH,  HENRY  INGERSOLL,  Life  and  Correspondence  of.  —  By  Vincent  Y. 

Bowditch.  —  Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1902.   2  vols. 
BOWLES,  SAMUEL,  Life  and  Times  of.  —  By  George  S.  Merriam.  —  New  York: 

The  Century  Company.    1885.   2  vols. 
BUCHANAN,  JAMES  (President).    Mr.  Buchanan's  Administration  on  the  Eve  of 

the  Rebellion.  —  New  York:  D.  Appleton  &  Co.    1866.   Pp.  296. 
CHASE,  SALMON  P.  —  By  Albert  Bushnell  Hart.  —  Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin  & 

Co.     1899.     Pp.  465. 

Correspondence  of.  —  MSS.  in  Library  of  Congress. 

CHILD,  LYDIA  MARIA,  Letters  of.  —  Introduction  by  J.  G.  Whittier.    Appendix 

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INDEX 


The  letters  noted  in  the  Index  include  all  those  which  are  quoted,  whether  in  whole  or  in  part,  in 
the  text.  In  some  cases  the  names  of  the  persons  to  whom  the  letters  were  addressed  are  found  only 
in  the  Notes.  The  Index  contains  also  references  to  some  of  the  more  important  matters  of  interest 
embodied  in  the  Notes;  but  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  index  the  Notes  and  Appendix  as  text. 
The  capital  letter  B  refers  always  to  the  subject  of  the  book. 


Abbott,  James  Burnett,  reinforces  B  at  Black 
Jack,  208;  attacks  Franklin,  212;  in  command 
of  defence  of  Lawrence,  258;  380. 

Abolition,  outlook  for,  never  so  hopeful  as  at 
time  of  Harper's  Ferry  raid,  586. 

Abolitionism,  Owen  Brown's  conversion  to,  14; 
charge  of,  disavowed  by  Big  Springs  Con 
vention,  104. 

Abolitionists,  causes  of  B's  later  disgust  with, 
45;  B's  first  contact  with  those  of  New  Eng 
land,  49,  50;  radical,  disappointed  by  plat 
form  of  Big  Springs  Convention,  103;  mili 
tant,  reap  harvest  in  sack  of  Lawrence,  188; 
charged  with  responsibility  for  Pottawatomie 
murders,  191;  difference  between  their  view 
and  B's  of  the  slavery  issue,  336;  in  their  view 
slavery  was  the  sum  of  human  wickedness, 
384;  Southern  view  of  their  wishes,  436.  See 
Radical  Political  Abolitionists. 

Abolitionists  in  Kansas,  in  1854  and  1855.  See 
Free  State  men. 

Adair,  Charles  S.,  warns  Osawatomie  of  ap 
proach  of  Border  Ruffians,  243;  175. 

Adair,  Mrs.  Florilla,  half-sister  of  B,  82,  166, 
1 06.  Wife  of 

Adair,  Rev.  Samuel  Lyle,  settles  at  Osawa 
tomie,  Kansas,  79;  quoted  concerning  meet 
ing  of  settlers  at  Osawatomie,  134,  135;  gives 
shelter  to  Jason  and  John,  Jr.,  after  Pottawa 
tomie,  166;  refuses  to  receive  Owen,  167;  later, 
approves  B's  action,  167;  receives  slaves  freed 
by  B  in  Missouri  raid,  372;  82,  128,  179,  196, 
210,  239,  242,  293,  304,  308,  358,  398.  Letters 
to  Owen  Brown,  606  n.  86,  S.  C.  and  Mrs. 
Davis,  253  n.,  James  Hanway,  372;  from  B, 
136,  303,  306. 

Adams,  Annie  (Brown),  daughter  of  B,  first  heard 
of  proposed  raid  in  1854,  54,  55,  56;  joins  B 
at  Kennedy  Farm,  405;  her  recollections  of 
the  life  there,  416-420;  sent  away  from  Har 
per's  Ferry,  420;  enters  Sanborn's  school, 
533;  quoted,  concerning  Hazlett,  572,  and 
Tidd,  681;  as  to  other  matters,  78,  81  n.,  408, 
421,  422,  424,  594  n.  12,  595  n.  20. 

Adams,  F.  G..  181. 

Adams,  George,  letter  from  B,  542. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  Pres.  of  U.  S.,  23. 

Adamson,  Mr.,  239. 

./Esop's  Fables,  16. 

Akron  (Ohio),  B's  operations  at,  in  1855,  85;  27, 

Alabama,  pro-slavery  men  from,  in  Kansas,  137, 
138. 

Albany  Journal,  quoted,  138,  139. 

Alburtis,  Capt.  E.  G.,  of  the  Martinsburg  com 
pany,  quoted  concerning  fight  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  443.  4441  447. 

Alcott,  Amos  Bronson,  impressions  of  B  in 
1859.  398. 

Alderman,  Amos  D.,  121. 

Alderman,  Henry,  121. 

Allan,  Elizabeth  Preston,  Life  and  Letters  of 
Margaret  Junkin  Preston,  quoted,  556. 


Allegheny  Mountains,  B's  first  thought  of,  as 
future  scene  of  his  operations,  48. 

Allen,  C.  G.,  236. 

Allen,  Ethan,  and  Co.,  282. 

Allstadt,  John  H.,  taken  prisoner  by  B's  men, 
431,  432,  437,  439. 

Allstadt,  John  Thomas,  taken  prisoner  by  B's 
men,  432;  quoted  concerning  killing  of  Mayor 
Beckham,  441;  and  the  wounding,  441,  and 
death,  448,  of  Oliver  Brown. 

American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  559. 

Anderson,  Col.  Edward,  179. 

Anderson,  Capt.  G.  T.,  351. 

Anderson,  Jeremiah  Goldsmith,  killed  in  en 
gine-house,  449,  454  and  n.;  sketch  of,  681, 
682;  400,  402,  407,  419,  462  n.,  558  n. 

Anderson,  Osborn  Perry  (colored),  elected 
"  member  of  Congress  "  at  Chatham  Conven 
tion,  333;  quoted,  420;  receives  George 
Washington's  sword  from  Col.  Washington, 
431;  his  escape,  445,  471;  his  incredible  ac 
count  of  his  escape  and  Hazlett 's,  in  A  Voice 
from  Harper's  Ferry,  445,  446,  685 ;  sketch  of, 
685;  331,  413,  415,  419,  439,  537. 

Anderson,  Samuel,  175. 

Andreas,  A.  T.,  History  of  the  State  of  Kansas, 
quoted,  117,  212,  350,  602  n.  13. 

Andrew,  John  A.,  his  impressions  of  and  sym 
pathy  with  B,  400;  criticises  undue  haste  of 
B's  trial,  482;  retains  Chilton  to  defend  B, 
493;  quoted,  557;  before  the  Mason  Commit 
tee,  634  n.  113;  479  n.,  560,  561.  Letters  to 
W.  P.  Fessenden,  530,  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  532  n. 
And  see  Pearson,  Henry  G. 

Anthony,  Col.  D.  R.,  574. 

Anthony,  Capt.  J.  M.,  his  Old  John  Brown, 
quoted,  154. 

Anti-Slavery  doctrines,  disavowed  by  both 
Free  State  conventions  in  autumn  of  1855, 
104,  105. 

Anti-Slavery  meetings,  attended  by  B,  49. 

Anti-Slavery  party,  depressed  by  result  of  first 
election  in  Kansas,  95;  designs  of,  as  repre 
sented  by  pro-slavery  leaders,  97. 

Anti-Slavery  Standard,  575. 

Arabia,  river  steamer,  225. 

Archibald,  Eben,  380. 

Army  Appropriation  Bill,  1856,  227. 

Arny,  William  F.  M.,  276,  277,  361. 

Arrest  of  judgment,  motion  for,  in  B's  case, 
argued  and  denied,  497. 

ArsenaL.  at  Harper's  Ferry,  428,  429,  430. 

Ashby,  Capt.  Turner,  555,  683  n.  128. 

Atchison,  David  R.,  pro-slavery  leader  in  Kan 
sas,  urges  Missourians  to  vote  in  Kansas 
election,  94;  his  speech  at  Weston,  94,  97; 
urges  Missourians  to  invade  Kansas,  117;  and 
the  Lawrence  treaty  of  peace,  124;  commands 
Platte  County  Riflemen,  144;  incites  Border 
Ruffians  to  attack  Free  State  Hotel,  145;  pro- 
slavery  circular  of,  216;  commands  forces 
marching  on  Osawatomie,  240;  disbandment 
of  his  forces  a  fatal  blow  to  hopes  of  Mia- 


712 


INDEX 


sourians,  260;  quoted,  596  n.  45  ISO,  179,  192, 
225,  229,  230,  250,  257. 

Atchison  Freedom's  Champion,  on  the  Har 
per's  Ferry  raid,  473. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  221,  304  n.,  349,  362. 

Austin,  Freeman,  captain  of  Osawatomie  Com 
pany,  229,  244,  245,  246,  250. 

Avery,  Dr.,  233. 

Avis,  Capt.  John,  B's  kind  and  considerate 
jailer  at  Charlestown,  488,  544;  B  pledged 
not  to  attempt  to  escape,  512;  his  affidavit  as 
to  his  relations  with  B,  670,  671;  439,  499, 
545,  546,  571.  578. 

Ayres,  name  of  two  Missouri  raiders,  368. 

B.,  E.,  of  Rhode  Island,  letter  from  B,  539. 

B.,  T.  A.,  letter  to  Gov.  Wise,  518. 

Babb,  Edmund,  suspected  of  writing  "  Floyd 
letter,"  411. 

Babcock,  Mr.,  233. 

Bacon,  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard,  schoolmate  of  B,  17; 
interview  with  B  at  Tallmadge,  Ohio,  293. 

Bacon,  Rev.  Leonard  W.,  his  John  Brown,  592 
n.  15. 

Baker,  Mr.,  outrage  on,  172. 

Baillie,  John  A.,  214. 

Ball,  A.  M.,  master-machinist  of  B.  &  O.  R.  R., 
taken  prisoner  at  Harper's  Ferry,  439. 

Baltimore,  sends  five  militia  companies  to 
Harper's  Ferry,  444. 

Baltimore  American,  quoted,  569. 

Baltimore  Convention  (1860),  583. 

Baltimore  Greys,  467. 

Baltimore  Patriot,  quoted,  568. 

Baltimore  Sun,  417,  568. 

Baltimore  and  Ohio  R.  R.,  train  of,  held  up  by 
B's  men,  432,  433;  employees  of,  in  Martins- 
burg  Company,  443;  a»d  the  precautions 
taken  for  execution  of  B,  524,  525. 

Bancroft,  Frederic,  his  Life  of  W.  H.  Seward, 
quoted,  475  n. 

Barber,  Gen.,  189. 

Barber,  Thos.W.,  murdered  by  Clark,  118,  180, 
330,  352;  his  the  only  life  lost  in  the  "  Waka- 
rusa  War,"  126;  rival  claimants  to  the  honor 
of  having  killed  him,  126. 

Barbour,  Alfred  W.,  465. 

Barnes,  William,  letters  from  B,  276,  283. 

Bates  County  (Mo.)  Standard,  letter  from  Rev. 
Martin  White,  242. 

Battle  of  the  Spurs,  the,  381-383;  authorities 
for  account  of,  634  n.  100. 

Baumer,  Mr.,  388. 

Baxter,  Richard,  his  Saint's  Rest,  16. 

Baylor,  Col.  Robert  W.,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  447, 
452,  465;  charges  preferred  against,  464; 
court  of  inquiry,  464. 

Beckham,  Fontaine,  Mayor  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
killed  by  Edwin  Coppoc,  441 ;  fierce  indigna 
tion  of  citizens,  441,  442;  a  friend  to  the  ne- 
gro,  442  n.;  447,  479,  570. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  188,  191,  518  n. 

"Beecher's  Bibles,"  Sharp's  rifles  so-called, 
188,  306. 

Bell,  James  M.,  colored,  330. 

Benjamin,  Jacob.  151,  152.  178,  240,  247. 

Bernard,  J.(  on  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  190. 

Bernard,  J.  M.,  his  store  pillaged,  by  B's  orders, 
210. 

Berryville  (Va.)  Clarke  Journal,  quoted,  501. 

Bertram,  John,  281. 

Bethune,  Dr.  George  W.,  563. 

Bickerton.  Capt.  Thomas,  concerning  the  second 
attack  on  Franklin,  230,  234;  232,  256. 

Bierce,  Gen.  Lucius  V.,  85,  153. 

2:g  Springs  Convention  (Free  State),  Sept.  5, 
1855,  91;  nominates  A.  H.  Reeder  for  Con 
gress,  103;  its  platform  disappointing  to  radi 
cal  Abolitionists,  103,  104;  favors  exclusion 
from  Kansas  of  all  negroes,  and  denounces 


attempts  to  interfere  with  slaves  and  slavery, 
104;  disavows  charge  of  abolitionism,  104; 
denounced  by  Charles  Stearns,  104;  its  cow 
ardliness  fails  to  mollify  hostile  Missourians, 
104;  entitled  to  a  measure  of  credit,  105;  but 
attempts  to  face  both  ways,  105;  creates  Ter 
ritorial  Executive  Committee,  106. 

Biggs,  Dr.,  461. 

Black  Jack,  a  spring  on  the  Sante  Fe  trail,  fight 
at,  200  seqq.;  described  by  B  and  by  H.  C. 
Pate,  202-207;  Pate's  article  in  N.  Y.  Trib 
une,  204;  crucial  moment  of,  207;  list  of  par 
ticipants  on  B's  side,  614  n.  25;  authorities  for 
narrative  of,  614  n.  28. 

Black  Laws  of  Shawnee  Legislature,  91,  92,  101 ; 
no  genuine  attempt  to  enforce,  101;  effect  of, 
in  north  and  east,  101. 

Blair,  Charles,  contracts  to  make  pikes  for  B, 
283,  284,  400,  401;  his  delay  in  delivering 
them,  284;  the  procedure  of  "  a  canny  Yan 
kee,"  284,  285. 

Blair,  Montgomery,  493,  508. 

Blake,  Major  G.  A.  H.,  224. 

Blakesley,  Levi,  adopted  brother  of  B,  2,  14,  17. 

"  Bleeding  Kansas,"  direct  relation  of,  to 
Harper's  Ferry  and  the  Civil  War,  201. 

Blessing,  John  H.,  B  gives  his  Bible  to,  553. 

Blood,  James,  quoted  concerning  Pottawa 
tomie  affair,  154;  175,  176,  232. 

Blue  Lodges,  in  Kansas  election,  98. 

Blunt,  John,  168. 

Boerley,  Thomas,  shot  by  B's  raiders,  435,  437, 
479. 

Boice,  Capt.,  247. 

Bolivar  Heights,  428,  429,  431,  435,  437. 

Bondi,  August,  his  story  of  B's  camp  on  Ottawa 
Creek,  198,  199;  his  store  burned  and  cattle 
stolen,  200;  concerning  the  outrages  commit 
ted  by  pro-slavery  men,  212,  and  the  "  lilt 
ing  "  of  Dutch  Henry's  horses,  235;  151,  152, 

155,    175,    177,    178,    202,    210,    211,    229,    234, 

236, 240,  247. 

Boone,  Col.,  189. 

Boonyille  (Mo.)  Observer,  quoted,  99,  216. 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  555. 

Border  Ruffians,  eastern  settlers'  opinion  of, 
96;  described  by  W.  A.  Phillips,  96,  97;  and 
by  T.  H.  Gladstone  and  Sara  T.  L.  Robinson, 
P7-,  misrepresentations  of  their  leaders,  97; 
destroy  Free  State  Hotel,  145,  146;  lawless 
character  of,  171;  not  guilty  of  assaults  on 
women,  173,  174;  threats  of  violence  common 
among,  178,  179;  elated  by  sack  of  Lawrence, 
181;  believed  thoroughly  in  justice  of  their 
cause,  1 86;  causes  of  their  bitterness  against 
Free  State  men,  1 86 ;  under  Rev.  M .  White,  ar 
rest  Jason  Brown,  194;  Jason's  story  of  their 
treatment  of  himself  and  John  Brown,  Jr., 
194  seqq.;  bent  on  rescuing  Pate,  are  headed 
off  by  Col.  Sumner,  209;  blockade  Missouri 
River  against  Lane's  Free  State  men,  225; 
put  to  flight  by  Cline's  company  on  South 
Middle  Creek,  237;  their  raid  on  Osawatomie, 
240  seqq.;  destroy  the  settlement,  246;  losses 
in  Osawatomie  fight,  248,  249;  no  worse  than 
"  Kansas  Ruffians  "  in  summer  of  1856,  264; 
in  the  Marais  des  Cygnes  massacre,  348  seqq.; 
at  Fort  Scott,  352;  93,  130.  See  also  Alaba 
ma,  Georgia,  Missourians  as  Kansas  Militia, 
Pro-slavery  men,  etc.,  and  South  Carolina. 

Border  Times,  193. 

Boston,  great  meeting  in  Tremont  Temple  on 
day  of  B's  execution,  559,  560. 

Boston  Transcript,  quoted,  481. 

Boston  Traveller,  498  n. 

Boteler,  A.  R.,  concerning  death  of  Kagi  and 
Leary,  445. 

Botts,  Capt.,  439. 

Botts,  John  Minor,  quoted,  649  n.  50. 

Botts,  Lawson,  assigned  as  counsel  for  B.  483, 


John  Brown] 


INDEX 


713 


484;  opening  address  of ,  490;  denounced  by 
B,  and  withdraws  from  defence,  492;  assists 
Hoyt,  493;  sketch  of,  645  n.  49;  486,  487,  489, 
491,  507.  Letter  from  A.  H.  Lewis,  506. 

Bowditch,  Henry  I.,  516. 

Bowditch,  William  I.,  516. 

Bowen,  Dr.  Jesse,  consignee  of  B's  revolvers, 
289;  and  B's  escape  from  arrest  in  Iowa  City, 
388.  Letter  from  B,  388. 

Bowles,  Samuel,  quoted,  558. 

Bowman,  George  E.,  591  n.  6. 

Brackett,  Edwin  A.,  sketches  B  in  jail,  546;  574. 

"  Branded  Hand,  The,"  sobriquet  of  Jonathan 
Walker,  51,  594  n.  13. 

Branson,  Jacob,  arrest  and  rescue  of  (1855), 
113,  114,  129,  140,  380. 

Brennen,  Francis,  121. 

Brewster,  Martha  E.  See  Brown,  Mrs.  Martha 
E. 

Brockett,  Lieut.,  Pate's  lieutenant  at  Black 
Jack,  202,  206,  207;  declines  to  take  part  in 
Marais  des  Cygnes  massacre,  348;  clerk  in 
Land  Office  at  Fort  Scott,  352;  quoted  by 
Crawford,  374. 

Brooks,  Preston,  assault  on  Charles  Sumner, 
154. 327. 

Brown,  Col.  (pro-slavery),  240. 

Brown,  Dr.  (pro-slavery),  at  public  meeting  in 
Tabor,  385. 

Brown,  Mr.,  State  Senator  of  Mississippi  (pro- 
slavery),  quoted,  566. 

Brown,  Agnes,  daughter  of  Salmon,  595  n.  29. 

Brown,  Amelia,  daughter  of  B,  death  of,  33. 

Brown,  Annie,  daughter  of  B.  See  Adams,  Mrs. 
Annie  (Brown). 

Brown,  Austin,  son  of  Jason,  death  of,  8r. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Dianthe  (Lusk),  first  wife  of  B,  her 
character  and  disposition,  6,  7,  18;  her  mar 
riage  to  B,  18;  mother  of  seven  children,  19; 
her  lineage,  19;  insanity  in  her  family,  19, 
592  n.  21 ;  mental  derangement,  19,  507;  her 
death,  19,  24,  592  n.  28;  22,  23. 

Brown,  Ellen,  infant  daughter  of  B,  death  of,  67. 

Brown,  Ellen,  daughter  of  B.  See  Fablinger, 
Mrs.  Ellen  (Brown). 

Brown,  Frederick,  uncle  of  B,  his  children,  12; 
18,  37- 

Brown,  Frederick,  brother  of  B,  birth  of,  13. 
Letter  from  B,  43. 

Brown,  Frederick,  infant  son  of  B,  death  of,  24. 

B  own,  Frederick,  son  of  B,  third  sergeant  of 
Liberty  Guards,  121;  and  the  claim-jumper, 
130;  on  B's  surveying  tour,  133;  in  the  Potta 
watomie  party,  153;  keeps  his  hands  un 
stained  at  Pottawatomie,  158;  regrets  Potta- 
watomie  murders,  165,  166;  and  the  alleged 
assault  on  Mary  Grant,  173;  at  Black  Jack, 
203;  his  appearance  there  decisive,  207,  208; 
his  reasons  for  returning  to  Kansas  with  B, 
224;  his  last  parting  with  B,  239;  murdered  by 
Rev.  Martin  White  (Aug.  1856),  241,  242, 
357;  mental  derangement  of,  507;  19,  76,81, 

83,  91,   120,   121,  159,   160,   162,  198,  210,  222, 

247,  278,  598  n.  33. 

Brown,  Frederick,  son  of  Watson,  415,  416. 

Brown,  George  Washington,  indicted  for  trea 
son,  142;  B's  opinion  of  his  Herald  of  Free 
dom,  354. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Isabella  (Thompson),  wife  of  Wat 
son,  422,  561.  Letters  from  Watson  Brown, 
415,  416- 

Brown,  Jason,  son  of  B,  in  Springfield  office  of 
Perkins  and  Brown,  59;  goes  to  Kansas,  75, 
76;  his  "  shanty  "  at  Osawatomie,  89;  and  the 
Indians,  90;  ignorant  of  real  purpose  of  Pot 
tawatomie  expedition,  153;  horrified  by  the 
murders,  remonstrates  with  B,  165;  questions 
Frederick.  165,  166;  returns  to  Osawatomie 
with  John,  Jr.,  166;  taken  in  by  the  Adairs, 
166;  and  the  alleged  assault  on  Mary  Grant, 


173;  arrested  by  Border  Ruffians  under  Rev. 
Martin  White,  194;  his  story  of  their  treat 
ment  of  John,  Jr.  and  himself,  194  seqq.; 
taken  to  Lecompton  and  released,  197;  joins 
his  father'!  company,  19?;  goes  to  Iowa  with 
B,  261,  262;  with  B  in  Chicago,  269;  declines 
to  join  B  at  Harper's  Ferry,  413;  quoted, 
concerning  B's  temperance  principles,  21,  the 
Browns'  migratory  habit,  28  n.,  the  first 
news  of  Pottawatomie  murders,  151,  B's  part 
ing  company  with  John,  Jr.  at  Prairie  City, 
151,  B  and  burning  Osawatomie,  248;  19,  39, 
44.  45,  46,  81,  91,  112,  118,  148,  179,  207,  210, 
223,  245,  246,  247,  253,  287,  343,  397-  Letters 
to  Mary  Anne  Brown,  172,  173,  Ruth 
(Brown)  Thompson,  229. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Jason,   173,  197,  223.    Letter  to 
Mary  Anne  Brown,  112. 

Brown,  Jeremiah,  brother  of  B,  270. 

Brown,  John,  great-great-grandfather  of  B,  10. 

Brown,  John,  great-grandfather  of  B,  10. 

Brown,  John,  grandfather  of  B,  a  revolutionary 
soldier,  i,  10,  278,  543;  children  of,  n. 

Brown,  John,  uncle  of  B,  12. 

Brown,  John,  of  Osawatomie. 

EARLY  YEARS.  —  Birth  (Torrington,  Conn., 
May  9,  1800),  i,  13;  early  years  and  charac 
ter  described  by  himself  in  letter  to  Henry  L. 
Stearns,  1-7;  descent,  i,  10,  15;  moved  to 
Ohio  (1805),  2;  in  school  of  adversity,  2;  ad 
dicted  to  lying  in  boyhood,  3;  effect  on,  of 
war  of  1812,  4;  interest  in  slavery  question 
first  aroused,  4;  taste  for  reading, 4,  5;  desire 
to  excel,  5 ;  an  early  convert  to  Christianity,  5 ; 
familiar  with  the  Bible,  6;  his  trading  in 
stincts,  6;  vanity  fed  by  success  in  business, 
6;  marries  Dianthe  Lusk,  6,  18;  liking  for  do 
mestic  animals  and  for  shepherd's  calling,  7; 
accustomed  to  adversity,  8;  character,  as 
moulded  by  his  early  training,  9;  resemblance 
to  his  father,  1 1 ;  "  a  representative  of  the  best 
type  of  old  New  England  citizenship,"  15;  in 
fluence  of  ancestry  on,  15;  the  first  American 
hanged  for  treason,  15;  boyhood,  16;  an  ex 
cellent  Bible-teacher,  16;  the  Bible  his  favorite 
book,  16;  range  of  reading,  16;  schooling  in 
Ohio,  Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts,  16, 
17;  thinks  of  entering  ministry,  17;  returns  to 
Ohio  and  tanning,  17;  an  excellent  cook,  17; 
opposition  to  slavery  confirmed,  17,  18;  kind 
ness  of  heart,  18;  genuineness  of  his  Christian 
principles,  18;  a  domestic  despot,  19,  36;  his 
children  devoted  to  him,  19;  his  early  severity 
to  them,  19,  592  n.  23;  his  tenderness  and  de 
votion  in  later  years,  19,  20;  requires  strict 
observance  of  the  Sabbath,  20;  his  intense  re 
ligious  training  of  his  sons  results  in  a  reaction, 
2i ;  views  on  temperance,  2 1 ;  early  married 
life  of,  described  by  James  Foreman,  21-23; 
debate  with  Methodist  minister,  22;  moves 
to  Richmond,  Penn.  (1825),  23;  his  value  to 
that  new  settlement,  23;  postmaster  of  Ran 
dolph,  Penn.,  23;  his  connection  with  school 
and  church  work  there,  24;  marries  his  second 
wife,  Mary  Anne  Day,  24,  25;  organizes  an 
independent  Congregational  Church,  25; 
mail-carrier.  25;  an  "Adams  man  "  in  poli 
tics,  25;  unabated  interest  in  fugitive  slaves, 
25;  Free  Masonry  and  the  murder  of  Morgan, 
26;  moves  to  Franklin  Mills.  Ohio  (1835),  26; 
in  financial  distress,  26;  contractor  for  canal 
construction.  27;  unsuccessful  land  specula 
tions,  27;  interested  in  Franklin  Land  Co., 
27;  insolvency  due  to  failure  of  real-estate 
ventures,  28;  his  integrity  unjustly  ques 
tioned,  28;  his  business  misfortunes  ex 
plained,  28,  29,  593  n.  32,  33;  returns  to  Hud 
son.  Ohio  (1837),  29;  breeds  race-horses.  29; 
first  visit  to  New  York,  29;  beginning  of  his 
career  as  "  John  Brown,  shepherd,"  29;  uses 


INDEX 


[John  Brown 


money  placed  in  his  hands  by  New  England 
Woolen  Co.  for  purchase  of  sheep,  30;  his  dis 
tressing  circumstances,  30;  negotiations  with 
trustees  of  Oberlin  College,  concerning  pur 
chase  of  land  in  Virginia,  come  to  nothing 
through  his  vacillation,  3 i~33;. shepherd  for 
Capt.  Oviatt,  33;  moves  to  Richfield,  Ohio 
(1842),  33;  loses  four  young  children,  34;  goes 
through  bankruptcy,  34;  success  in  raising 
cattle  and  sheep,  34;  moves  to  Akron,  Ohio 
(1844),  34;  in  partnership  with  Simon  Per 
kins,  Jr.  in  sheep-raising,  34.  35;  involved  in 
extensive  litigation,  36,  37;  suit  of  Western 
Reserve  Bank  and  its  complications,  37-39; 
his  conduct  in  this  litigation  open  to  criti 
cism,  38;  quarrel  with  A.  P.  Chamberlain,  39- 
41,  593  n.  49. 

GENSIS  OF  HIS  GREAT  PLAN. — When  did  the 
forcible  overthrow  of  slavery  become  "  his 
greatest  or  principal  object  "?  42  seqq.;  no 
documentary  evidence  of  special  interest  in 
slavery  until  1834,  43;  plans  school  for  ne 
groes,  44;  requires  his  children  to  swear  to  do 
their  utmost  to  abolish  slavery  (1839?),  45^ 
46;  Gen.  Carrington's  anecdote  of,  47;  con 
fides  his  plan  to  Frederick  Douglass,  47,  48; 
idea  of  using  force  probably  not  conceived 
until  after  1840,  48;  gradual  evolution  of  his 
plan,  48,  49;  removes  to  Springfield,  Mass. 
(1846),  49;  in  touch  with  militant  Boston 
Abolitionists,  49;  early  acquaintance  with  the 
Liberator,  49;  approves  of  Greeley's  doctrine 
of  opposing  slavery  with  Sharp's  rifles,  but 
not  of  the  Garrisonian  policy  of  non-resist 
ance,  49;  his  Sambo's  Mistakes,  50,  659-661; 
policy  of  armed  resistance  clearly  developed 
In  1851,  50,  51;  founds  U.  S.  League  of  Gilead- 
ites,  50;  his  Words  of  Advice  to  them,  50,  51, 
52;  strives  to  band  negroes  together  to  resist 
slave-catchers,  51;  obtains  signatures  of  44 
negroes  to  his  "  agreement  "  and  resolutions, 
52,  which  contain  direct  counsel  to  resist  of 
ficers  of  the  law  with  force,  and  to  "  shoot  to 
kill,"  53;  his  memorandum-book,  no.  2,  53; 
confides  details  of  Virginia  plan  to  Woodruff 
and  others  in  1854  or  1855,  54;  tries  to  secure 
Woodruff's  cooperation,  54;  Harper's  Ferry 
design  probably  revealed  to  others  as  early, 
54,  55,  but  may  have  been  conceived  much 
earlier,  55;  his  plan  and  his  object  probably 
varied  from  year  to  year,  55,  56;  hopes  to 
help  Southern  leaders  to  secede,  and  his  rea 
son  therefor,  56;  his  main  motive  to  come  to 
close  quarters  with  slavery,  56. 

WOOL-MERCHANT.  —  Establishes  headquar 
ters  at  Springfield  for  sale  of  Perkins  and 
Brown's  wool,  57 ;  his  home  and  mode  of  life  in 
Springfield,  described  by  Fred'k  Douglass,  57; 
his  personal  appearance  and  characteristics 
at  that  period,  57,  58;  interested  in  export  of 
wool,  59,  61;  not  fitted  for  the  business,  60, 
61;  trip  to  Europe  (1849),  61;  on  the  conti 
nent,  61,  62;  ill-success  of  trip,  62,  63;  rela 
tions  with  Simon  Perkins,  64,  65;  litigation 
with  Warren,  65,  and  with  Burlington  Mills 
Co.,  66;  close  of  his  career  as  a  wool-mer 
chant,  66;  continues  in  farming  and  sheep- 
raising  with  Perkins,  till  1854,  with  some  suc 
cess,  66,  67;  deaths  of  infant  children,  67; 
residence  in  Springfield,  67 ;  controversy  with 
Sunderland  the  hypnotist,  67,  68;  attends 
Zion  Methodist  Church,  68;  disturbed  by  his 
sons'  religious  backsliding,  68-70;  his  wish  to 
help  negroes  inspires  his  plan  to  move  to 
Adirpndacks,  70;  visits  North  Elba,  71;  be 
ginning  of  his  friendship  with  Gerrit  Smith, 
71;  removes  family  to  North  Elba  (1849),  72; 
hires  farm  there,  72;  wins  prize  at  cattle  fair, 
72;  his  counsel  to  the  negroes,  72;  defends 
them  against  white  residents  of  North  Elba, 


73  ;  described  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  74;  urges 
North  Elba  negroes  to  resist  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  75;  commands  his  children  to  resist  at 
tempts  to  enforce  it,  75;  leaves  for  Akron,  75; 
continues  farming  and  sheep-raising  there  four 
years,  75;  second  removal  to  North  Elba 
(June,  1855),  76;  buys  three  farms  there,  72, 
76;  his  restlessness  leaves  him  no  peace,  and 
he  turns  toward  Kansas,  76,  596  n.  64. 

FIRST  DAYS  IN  KANSAS.  —  Metamorphosis 
into  Capt.  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie,  77, 
78;  a  natural  leader,  77;  his  straightforward 
unselfishness,  78;  parting  words  to  his  family 
on  leaving  for  Kansas,  78;  receives  letters 
from  John,  Jr.  in  Kansas,  reciting  conditions 
and  appealing  for  arms,  82,  83;  their  effect  on 
him,  84,  85;  leaves  North  Elba  again  (Aug. 
1855),  85,  86;  attends  anti-slavery  conven 
tion  at  Syracuse,  85;  money  raised  for  him, 
85;  ships  firearms  to  Cleveland,  85;  holds 
meetings  and  receives  contributions  at 
Akron  and  elsewhere  in  Ohio,  85;  in  Chicago, 
86;  journey  thence  described,  87 ;  what  he  saw 
in  Missouri,  87;  his  meeting  with  a  Missou- 
rian,  88;  joins  sons  at  Osawatomie  (Oct.  7, 
1855),  88;  his  destitute  condition,  88;  finds 
the  settlement  in  distress,  88;  his  purpose  not 
to  settle  in  Kansas,  but  to  fight  along  the 
Kansas-Missouri  line,  93;  believes  in  "  med 
dling  directly  with  the  peculiar  institution," 
93;  prepared  to  take  property  or  lives  of 
Border  Ruffians,  93 ;  effect  upon  him  of  crimes 
of  Missourians  in  Kansas,  in;  goes  armed  to 
election  of  Free  State  delegate,  in;  describes 
relief  of  Lawrence  by  Free  State  men  and  end 
of  "  Wakarusa  War,"  118-120;  muster-roll  of 
his  company,  the  Liberty  Guards,  121;  is 
called  captain,  121 ;  his  part  in  events  at  Law 
rence  slurred  over  by  himself,  122;  R.  G.  El 
liott  concerning,  122;  impression  of  age  pro 
duced  by  him,  122;  James  F.  Legate  concern 
ing,  122;  his  view  of  the  treaty  of  Lawrence, 
123,  124,  127;  declares  himself  an  Abolition 
ist  and  offers  to  attack  Border  Ruffian  camp, 
123;  talk  with  Legate  about  slavery,  124;  re 
turns,  with  sons,  to  Brown's  Station,  126,  127; 
visits  Missouri,  127;  chairman  of  Osawa 
tomie  convention  to  nominate  state  officers, 
127;  position  won  by  him  in  Kansas,  127;  in 
Missouri  again,  128;  his  surveying  tour,  133; 
Henry  Thompson's  regard  for  him,  134;  at 
settlers'  meeting  at  Osawatomie,  134;  words 
attributed  to  him  by  Rev.  Martin  White, 
134;  Judge  Catp's  court,  135,  136;  his  know 
ledge  of  surveying  turned  to  account,  137. 

POTTAWATOMIE.  —  His  brief  report  of  the 
Pottawatomie  murders,  148;  question  of  his 
criminality  in  the  business  still  subject  of 
dispute  in  Kansas,  148;  place  in  history  de 
pends  on  view  taken  of  his  conduct  in  that 
business,  148;  leaves  camp  of  John,  Jr.'s  com 
pany  at  Prairie  City,  151;  his  action  deter 
mined  by  complaints  of  Weiner,  151;  his  plan 
revealed  to  a  council  of  some  of  John,  Jr.'s 
company,  152;  preparations  for  the  expedi 
tion,  153;  "  tired  of  caution,"  153;  his  manner 
on  the  journey,  154;  plan  disclosed  to 
Townsley,  155;  proposes  to  strike  at  night, 
155.  157;  his  influence  over  his  sons,  158;  the 
killing  of  the  Doyles,  158-161;  none  of  them 
killed  by  his  hand,  159;  the  killing  of  Wilkin 
son,  161,  and  of  William  Sherman,  162-164; 
recognized  by  Harris,  163;  satisfied  at  last, 
164;  did  he  intend  to  kill  Judge  Wilson?  165; 
meets  Jason  Brown  and  talks  with  him,  165; 
hue  and  cry  after,  166;  opinions  of  Free  State 
men  concerning  his  action,  167-169;  Charles 
Robinson  concerning,  169,  170;  views  of 
James  Hanway  and  T.  W.  Higginson,  170; 
possible  justification  of  his  act  discussed,  170 


John  Brown] 


INDEX 


715 


seqq.;  not  recalled  to  Pottawatomie  because 
Free  State  women  were  in  danger,  172,  173; 
had  not  heard  of  attack  on  Morse,  175;  was 
he  warned  of  threats  by  an  unidentified 
"  messenger"?  175, 176;  his  conduct  inconsist 
ent  with"  messenger  "  theory,  176;  probable 
grounds  of  his  determination,  176;  probably 
impelled  largely  by  general  body  of  threats 
against  Free  State  settlers,  177,  178;  why, 
then,  did  he  start  for  Lawrence?  178,  179;  his 
own  statements  of  his  reasons  for  the  mur 
ders,  179,  1 80;  E.  A.  Coleman's  and  Col.  An 
derson's  reports  of  his  words,  179;  logical  re 
sult  of  this  plea,  179;  other  excuses  offered 
for  his  crime,  180,  181;  said  to  have  been  di 
vinely  inspired,  181;  his  action  a  failure  as  a 
peace  measure,  but  successful  as  a  war  mea 
sure,  181,  182;  was  he  obeying  orders  of  Free 
State  leaders?  182-184;  S.  C.  Pomeroy  on 
this  point,  182,  183;  not  in  Lawrence  May  21, 
as  alleged  by  Pomeroy,  183;  likened  by  C. 
Robinson  to  the  Saviour,  184;  never  claimed 
to  have  acted  under  orders,  184;  said  to  have 
stated  that  victims  were  tried  by  jury,  184; 
believed  a  conflict  inevitable,  185;  killed  his 
men  in  the  honest  belief  that  he  was  a  faithful 
servant  of  Kansas  and  the  Lord,  185;  his  mo 
tives  wholly  unselfish,  185;  his  aim  to  free  a 
race,  185;  his  act  no  more  excusable  than 
similar  acts  of  Border  Ruffians,  186;  absurdity 
of  likening  him  to  Grant,  etc.,  187;  always 
disingenuous  about  the  murders,  187;  ethic 
ally  the  Pottawatomie  crime  cannot  be  suc 
cessfully  palliated  or  excused,  187,  188,  612 
n.  90. 

BLACK  JACK  TO  OSAWATOMIE.  —  Prowls 
about  camp  where  Jason  and  John,  Jr.  were 
prisoners,  hoping  to  rescue  them,  196;  at  Ja 
son's  claim,  197;  thence  to  Ottawa  Creek,  198; 
meets  and  eludes  U.  S.  troops,  198;  camp  on 
Ottawa  Creek  described  by  Bondi  and  Red- 
path,  198-200;  preparing  "  a  handful  of 
young  men  for  the  work  of  laying  the  founda 
tions  of  a  free  commonwealth,"  199;  hears  of 
camp  of  Missourians  at  Black  Jack,  200; 
J.  E.  B.  Stuart  and  H.  C.  Pate,  201;  starts 
with  Prairie  City  Rifles  for  Pate's  camp  at 
Black  Jack,  201,  202;  accused  of  violating 
flag  of  truce,  203,  205,  206;  describes  battle  of 
Black  Jack  in  letter  to  his  family,  203,  and  in 
N.  Y.  Tribune,  204-207;  his  and  Shore's  writ 
ten  agreement  with  Pate,  207 ;  releases  Pate's 
prisoners,  208;  his  views  of  Free  State  men, 
208;  his  camp  broken  up,  prisoners  released, 
and  men  dispersed,  by  Col.  Sumner,  209; 
orders  pillaging  of  Bernard's  stores,  209,  210; 
thinks  raiding  for  supplies  justified,  210;  in 
hiding,  210,  211,  220;  reign  of  terror  at  Osa- 
watomie  due  to  Pottawatomie  murders,  213, 
215;  resumes  activity  in  July  (1856),  220;  in 
Lawrence  en  route  to  Topeka,  220;  ride  to 
Topeka  described  by  W.  A.  Phillips,  221;  his 
view  of  affairs  in  Kansas,  221;  censures  both 
parties,  221;  his  sociological  views,  221; 
slavery  "  the  sum  of  all  villainies,"  222;  at  the 
Willets  farm  near  Topeka,  222;  leaves  To 
peka  neighborhood,  222-224;  members  of  his 
party,  222;  his  contest  with  his  son  Oliver, 
223;  S.  J.  Reader's  impressions  of  him,  223, 
224;  first  meeting  with  Aaron  D.  Stevens, 
224;  turns  back  at  Nebraska  City,  224;  starts 
with  Walker  and  Lane  for  Lawrence,  228; 
at  Topeka  again,  228;  Walker  deemed  him 
insane,  228;  talk  with  Walker  on  Pottawa 
tomie  murders  and  responsibility  therefor, 
228;  and  with  John,  Jr.,  228,  229  and  n.;  in 
Lawrence,  229;  the  "  old  terrifier,"  230; 
probably  not  at  capture  of  "  Forts  "  Stanwood 
and  Titus,  232;  demands  extreme  penalty 
against  prisoners  taken  at  Titus,  233;  his  re 


newed  activity  after  exchange  of  prisoners, 
235  andn.;  in  Osawatomie,  235;  his  plans,  ac 
cording  to  Bondi,  235;  his  concern  for  good 
mounts  for  his  men,  235 ;  begins  to  organize  his 
"  volunteer-regular  "  force,  236;  the  covenant 
drawn  up  by  him,  236,  661-664;  his  plan  for 
meeting  the  enemy,  236;  marches  south  into 
Linn  County,  236;  speech  to  his  company, 
236;  his  company  and  Cline's  nearly  fight 
each  other,  237;  speech  to  his  prisoners,  237, 
238;  raids  pro-slavery  settlement  at  Sugar 
Creek,  238;  returns  to  Osawatomie  with  150 
cattle,  238;  camps  at  Crane's  ranch,  238;  his 
activity,  238,  239;  described  by  J.  H. 
Holmes,  239;  urged  by  Lane  to  return  to 
Lawrence,  239;  last  parting  with  his  son 
Frederick,  239;  anticipation  of  attack  on 
Osawatomie,  240;  warned  of  Reid's  approach, 
243;  his  part  in  the  battle,  244  seqq.;  tactical 
disadvantage  of  his  position,  245;  his  forces 
retreat  into  the  river,  245;  his  linen  duster, 
etc.,  245,  246;  report  of  his  death,  247;  makes 
no  attempt  to  rally  his  force,  247;  "  I  will 
carry  the  war  into  Africa,"  248;  exaggerates 
pro-slavery  losses,  248,  249;  his  newspaper 
account  of  the  fight,  249;  his  arrival  in  Law 
rence  (Sept.  7,  1856),  described  by  H.  Reisner, 
253;  movements  in  the  interim,  253;  offered 
and  declines  command  of  expedition  against 
Leavenworth,  254;  remains  with  John,  Jr.,  254, 
255;  his  share  in  defence  of  Lawrence,  258, 
259;  his  reasons  for  deciding  to  leave  Kansas 
for  the  East,  261;  at  Tabor,  Iowa,  261,  267; 
narrowly  escapes  arrest,  261,  621  n.  86;  Jason 
Brown's  narrative  of  the :  journey,  261;  contro 
versy  concerning  his  private  meeting  with  C. 
Robinson,  263;  condition  of  affairs  in  Kansas 
when  he  left,  264;  his  then  status  in  the  coun 
try's  eyes,  266;  uncompromising  hostility  to 
slavery  his  chief  claim  to  a  place  in  history, 
266. 

IN  THE  EAST.  —  Tabor,  a  congenial  haven, 
267;  chooses  it  as  headquarters  of  his  "  volun 
teer-regular  "  force,  268;  unjustly  denounces 
Gov.  Geary,  268;  his  plans  for  war  on  slavery, 
268;  in  Chicago,  268,  269;  returns  to  Tabor, 
at  request  of  Kansas  Nat.  Com.,  269,  270;  to 
Chicago  and  North  Elba,  with  his  son  Wat 
son,  270;  quoted  concerning  defeat  of  Fre 
mont  by  Buchanan,  270  n.;  in  Boston  early  in 
1857.  2.21;  meets  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Theo. 
Parker,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and  others, 
22J-'T  Sanborn's  and  Garrison's  impressions, 
271,  272;  first  visit  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  272;  his 
view  of  Free  State  leaders  in  Kansas,  272;  A. 
A.  Lawrence's  impressions  of,  273;  Thoreau's 
impressions  of,  273,  274;  his  connection  with 
Pottawatomie  murders  never  known  to 
Stearns,  and  not  thoroughly  to  other  Boston 
friends,  274;  his  Virginia  plans  not  then  made 
known  to  them,  274,  275;  Massachusetts 
State  Kansas  Com.  votes  to  furnish  rifles  and 
money,  274;  controversy  concerning  the 
rifles,  275;  at  meeting  of  Kansas  Nat.  Com., 

275,  276;  $5000  voted  to  him  for   defensive 
measures,  276;  charges  National  Com.  with 
bad  faith,  276;  his  requisition  for  supplies, 

276,  277.  664;  visits  Peterboro,  N.  Y.,  and 
North  Elba,  277;  again  in  Boston,  277;  wan 
dering  restlessly  through  New  England  and 
New  York,  277,  278;  speech  before  committee 
of   Mass.   Legislature,    278;   trying   to   raise 
money  for  his  volunteer-regulars,  278  seqq.; 
at    Canton,     Conn.,    278;    contributions   re 
ceived,  278  seqq.;  his  appeal  in  N.  Y.  Tribune, 
279;  assured  by  Lawrence  "that  his  family 
shall  be  taken  care  of ,  280;  $1000  raised  to 
purchase  homestead  for  family,  280;  urges 
collection  of  subscriptions,  28:;  purchase  of 
Thompson  land  in  No.  Elba  consummated, 


7i6 


INDEX 


[John  Brown 


281;  makes  addresses  in  Worcester,  March, 
1857,  281;  his  plans  stated,  281;  Dr.  F.  Way- 
land  and  R.  W.  Emerson  on  his  oratory,  281, 
282;  slim  results  of  Worcester  meetings,  282; 
in  Easton,  Penn.,  with  ex-Gov.  Reeder,  282; 
learns  of  his  sons'  decision  to  fight  no  more, 
282;  financial  progress  unsatisfactory,  283; 
expected  in  Kansas,  283;  makes  contract  for 
pikes  with  C.  Blair,  283,  284;  for  what  pur 
pose  were  they  ordered?  284,  285;  delay  in 
delivery  due  to  lack  of  funds,  284;  first  ac 
quaintance  with  Hugh  Forbes, -3&&  attracted 
by  him  and  confides  plans  to  him,  285,  286;  an 
unfortunate  alliance,  286;  his  suspicions  soon 
aroused,  286;  "  helped  "  by  Gerrit  Smith, 
287;  threatened  with  arrest,  287;  with 
Judge  Russell  in  Boston,  288;  his  "farewell 
to  the  Plymouth  Rocks,"  etc.,  288;  G.  L. 
Stearns  buys  revolvers  for  him,  289;  at  Al 
bany,  N.  Y.,  and  Vergennes,  Vt.,  290;  as 
sumes  nom  de  guerre  of  Nelson  Hawkins,  290; 
John,  Jr.  fears  for  his  safety  in  Kansas,  291; 
leaves  for  Kansas  with  considerable  supplies, 
291,  292;  Stearns's  confidence  in  him,  292; 
reduced  to  distress  before  reaching  his  desti 
nation,  292;  stages  of  his  retarded  journey, 
292-294;  nom  de  guerre  of  James  Smith,  292; 
at  Tallmadge,  O.,  semi-centennial,  293;  his 
memorandum-book  quoted,  293,  294;  in  Iowa 
City,  294;  learns  that  Pottawatomie  indict 
ments  are  nol-pros'd,  294;  in  Tabor,  Aug.  7, 
1857,  294;  his  close  friends,  at  Grasshopper 
Falls  Convention,  oppose  taking  part  in  elec 
tion  of  delegate  to  Congress,  296;  their  de 
feat  helped  turn  his  mind  to  his  contemplated 
raid  against  slavery,  297;  applies  to  G.  L. 
Stearns  for  money,  297;  his  addendum  to 
Forbes's  Duty  of  a  Soldier,  298;  sends  copies  to 
Wattles  and  others,  with  appeals  for  aid,  298; 
Forbes's  usefulness  of  brief  duration,  298; 
table-talk  recalled  by  Rev.  H.  D.  King,  299; 
in  his  mind,  slavery  the  one  wrong,  299;  disa 
greement  with  Forbes,  299;  leaves  Tabor, 
Nov.  2, 1857,  299;  reasons  for  delay,  299  seqq.: 
appointed  "  brigadier-general  "  by  Lane, 
301;  Jamison's  mission,  301;  his  immediate 
plans  confided  to  Sanborn,  302;  financial  con 
dition,  302;  apparent  lack  ~oT  determination 
at  this  time,  302,  303;  defended  by  Sanborn 
in  letter  to  Higginson,  303;  "  the  best  dis 
union  champion  you  can  find,"  303,  304; 
aided  with  money  by  E.  B.  Whitman,  and  the 
Adairs,  304;  goes  to  Lawrence,  Kansas,  304, 
and  disappears  after  two  days,  304,  305;  stet 
no-minis  umbra,  305;  in  Topeka,  305;  not  con 
tent  with  policy  of  Free  State  leaders  to  ac 
cept  existing  territorial  government.  307;  the 
Free  State  secret  society,  307;  enrolls  first  re 
cruits  for  Harper's  Ferry,  307,  308;  J.  E. 
Cook  concerning  his  recruiting  operations, 
308;  his  ultimate  destination  first  made 
known  to  his  men,  308;  his  vacillation  at  an 
end,  308,  309;  henceforth  all  his  energies  bent 
upon  "  troubling  Israel  "  in  Virginia,  309; 
his  men  not  pleased  with  Virginia  plan,  310; 
has  words  with  Cook,  310;  his  magnetism  pre 
vails,  310;  travels  across  Iowa  (Dec.  1857), 
311,  312;  at  Springdale,  312;  anecdote  of,  and 
J.  Townsend,  312;  his  diary  quoted,  312;  dis 
closes  details  of  his  plan,  313  seqq.;  first  men 
tion  of  Harper's  Ferry,  Jan.  15,  1858,  313; 
differences  with  Forbes,  313;  his  Virginia 


316;  with  F.  Douglass  in  Rochester,  317;  un 
pleasant  relations  with  Forbes,  317  seqq.;  dic 
tates  disingenuous  letter  from  John,  Jr.  to 
Forbes,  318;  tries  to  arrange  meeting  at  Ger 
rit  Smith's,  319;  confides  his  plan  to  Smith, 


420;  reads  to  Smith  and  Sanborn  his  con 
stitution  for  governing  the  territory  he  might 
redeem  from  slavery,  321;  his  will  prevails, 
321,  322;  discloses  his  plan  to  the  Gloucesters 
and  other  negroes  in  Brooklyn  and  Phila., 
323;  tries  to  enlist  new  recruits,  323;  dis 
appointed  by  H.  Thompson's  refusal,  323, 
324;  in  Boston,  324;  asks  Theo.  Parker  to 
prepare  addresses  to  U.  S.  troops  and  to  citi- 
zens(  generally,  324,  325;  concern  for  his 
men's  reading,  325;  method  of  raising  funds 
for  him,  325;  Higginson's  characterization, 
326;  Senator  Sumner's  coat,  327;  in  various 
parts  of  N.  Y.,  327;  in  St.  Catherine's,  Can 
ada,  327;  and  Harriet  Tubman,  327;  his  stay 
in  Canada  a  reconnoissance,  328;  Dr.  De- 
laney,  328;  returns  to  Springdale  for  his 
"  sheep,"  328;  new  recruits,  328;  Springdale 
to  Chatham,  Canada,  via  Chicago,  329,  330; 
vain  attempts  to  keep  his  men  from  writing 
indiscreet  letters,  330;  speech  to  the  Chatham 
Convention,  331,  332;  his  "  Provisional  Con 
stitution,"  etc.,  332,  333;  chosen  comman- 
der-in-chief,  333;  the  constitution  considered 
as  a  revelation  of  his  character  and  philoso 
phy,  334  seqq.;  some  provisions  suggest  in 
sanity,  334.  335;  difference  between  his  views 
and  those  of  the  Abolitionists,  336;  Chatham 
Convention  exhausts  his  funds,  336,  337; 
needs  of  his  men,  337;  in  Boston  again,  338; 
consents  to  temporary  shelving  of  Virginia 
plan,  339,  340;  his  opinion  of  his  "  backers," 
as  reported  by  Higginson,  340;  receives  some 
money  and  arms,  340,  341;  attitude  of  Boston 
group  at  this  time  (spring  of  1858)  the  first 
sign  of  the  effort  to  evade  responsibility,  342. 
KANSAS  AGAIN;  THE  MISSOURI  RAID.  —  In 
North  Elba  and  Cleveland,  en  route  to  Kansas, 
343 ;  loses  five  of  his  men  by  postponement  of 
his  plan,  344;  in  Lawrence  in  disguise,  June  25, 
1858,  345;  assumes  name  of  Shubel  Morgan 
345;  attracted  by  exploits  of  James  Mont 
gomery,  352;  in  touch  with  Montgomery, 
353;  prepares  "Articles  of  Agreement  for 
Shubel  Morgan's  Company,"  353;  describes 
condition  of  affairs  in  southeastern  Kansas, 
354.  355;  his  opinion  of  the  Herald  of  Free 
dom,  354;  interesting  personal  disclosures  in 
letter  to  John,  Jr.  355;  directs  him  to  collect 
material  for  "  A  Brief  History  of  John  Brown, 
otherwise  (old  B),"  etc.,  356;  builds  "  Fort 
Snyder,"  356;  did  he  acquire  title  to  Snyder's 
claim?  356,  357;  tries  to  obtain  revolvers  sent 
by  National  Kansas  Com.,  357;  refuses  to  take 
revenge  on  Martin  White,  357,  358;  ill  at  the 
Adairs',  Aug.-Sept.,  1858,  358;  in  Lawrence, 
359;  need  of  funds  supplied  in  part  by  notes 
sent  by  G.  L.  Stearns,  359,  360;  signs  as  agent 
for  National  Kansas  Com.,  360;  his  authority 
denied  by  H,  B.  Hurd,  360;  a  pardonable  er 
ror  of  judgment,  360,  361;  his  view  of  the 
slavery  question,  according  to  W.  A.  Phillips, 
362;  prophesies  war,  362;  his  whereabouts  in 
Oct.  (1858),  362,  363;  state  of  his  health,  363; 
the  Wattles  family's  recollection  of  him,  363; 
with  Montgomery  in  his  raid  on  Paris,  Kans., 
364;  Acting-Gov.  Walsh  urges  offer  of  reward 
for  his  apprehension,  364;  plot  to  capture, 
364;  drafts  a  peace  agreement,  which  is 
adopted  at  meeting  of  Free  Soilers  and  pro- 
slaverymen,  365,  366,  665,  666;  joins  Mont 
gomery  in  attack  on  Fort  Scott,  366;  his  dislike 
of  serving  under  another  keeps  him  from  tak 
ing  an  active  part,  366;  wrongfully  charged 
by  Robinson  and  others  with  responsibility 
for  Fort  Scott  affair,  367;  why  Montgomery 
assumed  leadership,  367;  the  Missouri  raid 
(Dec.  1858),  367  seqq.;  due  to  the  story  told 
by  Jim  Daniels,  367;  his  companions  in  the 
raid,  368;  slaves  not  the  only  property  taken. 


John  Brown] 


INDEX 


717 


368,  369;  Pres.  Buchanan  and  the  Governor 
of  Missouri  offer  reward  for  his  arrest,  371; 
returns  to  Kansas  with  freed  slaves,  371,  372; 
prepares  to  repel  counter-invasion ,  373;  in 
camp  on  Turkey  Creek,  373;  at  Osawatomie, 
374;  interview  with  G.  A.  Crawford,  374,  375; 
his  "Parallels  "  published  in  N.  Y.  Tribune, 
375,  376;  denounced  by  Gov.  Medary  and 
censured  by  Kansas  Legislature,  376,  377; 
his  presence  in  Kansas  the  cause  of  excite 
ment  and  strife,  378;  effect  of  Missouri  raid 
on  his  Virginia  plans,  378;  his  friends  not 
fully  informed  as  to  the  trifling  results  of  his 
last  visit  to  Kansas,  378,  379;  peace  restored 
there  as  soon  as  he  had  gone,  370;  leaves  Osa 
watomie  Jan.  20,  1859,  379;  reticence  in  let 
ters  to  his  family,  379;  travels  north  through 
Kansas  with  freed  slaves,  379-383;  case  of 
Dr.  Doy,  380;  finances  recruited  at  Lawrence, 
380;  pursued,  381;  the  "  Battle  of  the  Spurs," 
and  his  escape,  381-383;  the  terror  of  his 
name,  382;  leaves  Kansas  for  the  last  time, 
Feb.  2,  1859,  383;  receives  a  cool  welcome  at 
Tabor,  384;  requests  church  there  to  offer 
thanksgiving  for  himself  and  his  freed  slaves, 
384;  addresses  public  meeting,  385;  Dr. 
Brown  of  St.  Joseph,  385;  disgusted  with 
timid  resolutions  of  Tabor  meeting,  385;  from 
Tabor  to  Springdale,  386,  387;  at  J.  B.  Grin- 
nell's,  386;  "  coals  of  fire  "  message  to  back 
sliders  in  Tabor,  387;  leaves  Springdale,  387, 
389;  attempt  to  arrest  him,  388;  his  claim  on 
the  arms  remaining  at  Tabor,  388,  389;  jour 
neys  with  freed  slaves  to  Chicago,  Detroit, 
and  Canada  line,  389.  39o;  lecture*  in  Cleve 
land  (March),  391 ;  his  person  and  lecture  de 
scribed  by  "  Artemus  Ward,"  391-393;  his 
account  of  his  doings  in  Kansas  and  the  Mis 
souri  raid,  392,393,  635  n.  116;  remark  about 
"fence  stakes,"  393;  Cleveland  Leader's  re 
port  of  the  lecture,  393;  hia  "  converted  "  cat 
tle,  393;  his  contempt  for  the  U.  S.  authori 
ties,  393;  reward  offered  for  his  capture,  393, 
394;  lectures  in  Jefferson,  O.,  394;  reticent 
with  Giddings,  394;  with  Gerrit  Smith  at 
Peterboro,  N.  Y.,  395;  ill  at  No.  Elba,  395;  at 
Concord,  Mass.,  with  Sanborn,  395,  396; 
everything  ready  for  the  great  blow,  396; 
meetings  with  secret  committee  in  Boston, 
397;  address  in  Concord  (May,  1859),  398; 
A.  B.  Alcott's  impressions,  398;  and  John  M. 
Forbes's,398,399;  conversation  with  Senator 
Wilson  as  to  Missouri  raid,  399;  A.  A.  Law 
rence's  diary  quoted  as  to  him,  400;  meets 
Gov.  Andrew,  400;  last  public  appearance  in 
the  North,  400;  leaves  Boston,  June  3,  400; 
negotiations  with  Blair  for  pikes,  400,  401; 
again  at  No.  Elba  for  the  last  time,  401;  with 
John,  Jr.  at  West  Andover,  O.,  401. 

HARPER'S  FERRY.  —  Preparing  for  attack 
on  Virginia,  without  mentioning  his  real  plan, 
402;  in  Ohio  and  Penn.,  402;  leaves  Penn. 
for  "the  seat  of  war,"  June  30,  1859,  402; 
at  Hagerstown  (Md.),  402,  403;  in  quarters 
at  Sandy  Hook  near  Harper's  Ferry,  July  3, 
403;  reconnoitring  in  Maryland,  403;  looking 
for  land  to  buy,  403;  rents  Kennedy  Farm 
and  moves  thither,  403,  404;  desires  to  have 
women  on  hand  to  avert  suspicion,  405 ;  joined 
by  daughter  Annie,  and  daughter-in-law 
(Oliver's  wife)  405;  short  of  funds  again,  406; 
arms  forwarded  by  John,  Jr.,  406, 407 ;  his  suc 
cess  endangered  by  inquisitiveness  of  neigh 
bors  and  indiscretion  of  his  men,  408;  dreads 
Cook's  loquacity,  408;  disturbed  by  defection 
of  Gill  and  Carpenter,  409;  his  plan  denounced 
to  Sec'y  of  War  Floyd,  by  anonymous  cor 
respondent,  410;  story  of  the  anonymous  let 
ter  and  its  purpose,  411,  412;  financial  diffi 
culties  solved  by  F.  J.  Meriam  and  others, 


412,  421;  his  plan  disapproved  by  F.  Doug 
lass,  412,  413;  his  chagrin  at  Douglass's  de 
fection,  413;  other  disappointments,  413; 
members  of  the  "Provisional  Government  " 
assembled  at  Kennedy  Farm,  414,  415;  their 
confidence  in  him,  416;  Mrs.  Annie  Brown 
Adams's  description  of  life  at  the  farm,  416- 
420;  sends  the  women  away,  420;  frequent 
absences  from  the  farm  during  the  summer, 
420;  assigns  Meriam  to  duty  of  guarding  arms 
left  at  the  farm,  421 ;  imminence  of  the  attack 
foreshadowed  in  his  letters  to  Kagi  and  John, 
Jr.,  422,  423;  last  obstacle  to  attack  removed 
by  Meriam,  423;  his  previous  delay  discussed, 
424;  was  the  raid  unduly  delayed  or  unduly 
hastened?  424. 

Leaves  Kennedy  Farm  for  the  Ferry,  Oct. 
16,  426;  disposition  of  his  forces,  426,  427;  he 
alone  had  faith  in  his  purpose,  427;  no  plan  of 
campaign  beyond  seizing  the  town,  427,  438; 
seemed  bent  on  violating  every  military  prin 
ciple,  427;  had  no  well-defined  purpose  in  at 
tacking  Harper's  Ferry  except  to  begin  his  ~ 
revolution  in  a  spectacular  way,  427;  attack 
on  arsenal,  etc.,  described  in  detail,  429  seqq.;^ 
his  remark  to  the  first  prisoner,  430;  Geo. 
Washington's  sword  and  pistol,  431;  speech 
to  Col.  L.  Washington,  432;  his  orders  as  to 
avoiding  bloodshed  violated  at  the  outset,  433 ; 
first  alarm  given  prematurely  for  that  reason, 
434;  fails  to  allow  for  the  spirit  of  the  people, 
434;  his  men  take  many  prisoners,  437;  urged 
by  Kagi  to  leave  Harper's  Ferry,  438;  why  did 
he  not  escape  while  there  was  time?  438;  soon 
put  on  the  defensive,  438;  cut  off  from  his  men 
in  the  rifle  works  and  the  arsenal,  439;  at  bay 
in  the  fire-engine  house,  439,  440;  kindly 
treatment  of  his  prisoners,  443 ;  last  avenue  of 
escape  cut  off,  443;  surrounded  in  engine 
house  by  increasing  numbers  of  troops,  444; 
his  reply  to  a  summons  to  surrender,  447 ;  in 
terview  with  Capt.  Sinn,  448;  "  I  have 
weighed  the  responsibility  and  shall  not 
shrink  from  it,"  447;  death  of  Oliver  Brown, 
448;  but  five  men  alive  and  unwounded,  449; 
betrays  no  trepidation,  449;  two  of  the  five 
refuse  to  fight  more,  449;  Lieut.  Stuart,  for 
Col.  Lee,  demands  his  surrender,  450,  451 ;  hia 
refusal  and  its  result,  451;  engine  house 
stormed  by  Lieut.  Green,  4^2  seqq.;  his  brav 
ery  at  the  supreme  moment,  453;  attacked 
and  wounded  by  Lieut.  Green,  453;  his  escape 
from  death  due  to  lightness  of  Green's  sword, 
453,  454;  not  seriously  wounded,  455;  Gov. 
Wise  quoted  concerning  him,  455;  his  "  inter 
view  "  with  Gov.  Wise  and  others  immedi 
ately  after  his  capture,  as  reported  in  N.  Yj_r-- 
Herald,  456-463;  circumstances  of  his  surren 
der,  461,  462  and  notes;  colloquy  with  Gov. 
Wise,  463;  his  act  compared  with  Wise's  con 
duct  in  1 86 1,  465,  466;  his  correspondence 
left  at  Kennedy  Farm,  467;  portions  of  it  read 
to  the  crowd  after  the  raid,  469,  470;  removed  """ 
to  jail  at  Charlestown,  470;  his  survival  for 
tunate  for  the  cause  he  had  at  heart,  471;  his 
act  discussed  in  Democratic  and  Republican 
press,  471  seqq.;  gradual  change  of  attitude  of 
latter  toward  the  raid,  473,  474;  southern 
opinion  concerning  B,  474-476;  possibility  of 
a  speedy  trial,  476,  477;  question  of  jurisdic 
tion  raised,  477;  before  the  magistrates,  479, 
486;  was  his  trial  unduly  hastened?  479-482; 
in  court  on  a  couch,  479,  480,  481,  488;  ques 
tion  of  counsel,  483-485;  the  prosecuting  at 
torneys,  485;  committed  for  trial,  486;  his 
speech  on  that  occasion,  487;  indicted  by 
Grand  Jury,  Oct.  26,  for  treason  to  Virginia, 
488;  appeals  for  delay  on  account  of  wounds, 
488,  489;  the  trial  jury  empanelled,  489;  sug 
gestion  of  insanity  in  his  family,  489, 506-510. 


7i8 


INDEX 


[John  Brown 


595  n.  33,  647  n.  100 ;  declines  to  avail  himself 
of  insanity  plea,  490,  507 ;  his  suggestions  to 
his  counsel,  490,  491;  renewed  appeal  for  de 
lay  because  of  absence  of  witnesses,  491,  492; 
denounces  his  counsel,  492;  correspondence 
with  Judges  Tilden  and  Russell,  493;  takes 
a  hand  in  examining  witnesses,  494;  accused 
by  Hunter  of  feigning  illness,  495;  Hoyt 
Quoted  concerning  B's  character  and  bearing, 
495.  496;  found  guilty  of  treason,  496;  how  he 
received  the  verdict,  496;  his  vision  of  the  fu 
ture,  496;  "  I  am  worth  inconceivably  more 
to  hang  than  for  any  other  purpose,"  496, 
546;  his  great  speech  to  the  court  before  sen 
tence,  498,  499;  sentenced  to  be  hanged  pub 
licly  on  Dec.  2,  1859,  499;  delay  of  execution 
affords  opportunity  to  influence  public  opin 
ion  in  the  North,  499;  diversity  of  opinion 
concerning  execution  of  sentence,  500  seqq.; 
Gov.  Wise  declines  to  interfere  with  sentence, 
503,  504;  question  of  commutation  of  sen 
tence  discussed,  506;  plots  to  rescue,  511  seqq.; 
declines  to  lend  himself  to  any  scheme  of  res 
cue,  512;  his  pledge  to  Capt.  Avis,  512;  for 
bids  his  wife  to  visit  him,  513;  anonymous 
letters  to,  relating  to  plans  of  rescue,  and 
their  effect,  518;  precautions  taken  for  his  ex 
ecution,  522  seqq.;  predicament  and  attitude 
of  his  Northern  supporters,  528  seqq.;  Dr. 
Howe's  card  concerning  the  raid,  531-533! 
B's  bearing  after  judgment,  536,  537;  permis 
sion  to  write  freely  a  dangerous  weapon  in  his 
hands,  538;  tremendous  power  and  influence 
of  his  letters  from  the  jail,  538,  539;  detailed 
reports  of  his  life  in  jail  spread  through  the 
country,  544  seqq.;  conversation  with  Rev. 
Norval  Wilson,  544;  his  visitors,  545-548;  vis 
ited  by  H.  C.  Pate,  546;  and  by  Gov.  Wise, 
547,  548;  universal  confidence  in  his  veracity 
and  integrity,  547;  writes  to  A.  Hunter,  548; 
his  real  object,  548;  last  interview  with  his 
wife,  550;  last  injunctions  to  his  family,  551- 
553;  gives  his  Bible  to  J.  H.  Blessing,  553;  his 
various  wills,  553,  667-670;  emotion  of  his 
guards,  554;  the  journey  to  the  scaffold,  554 
seqq.;  prophetic  message  to  his  countrymen, 
554;  on  the  scaffold,  556;  his  execution,  557, 
653  n.  13;  his  body  delivered  to  his  wife  and 
taken  to  No.  Elba,  559,  561 ;  and  there  buried, 
561,  562;  views  of  prominent  men  North  and 
South  concerning  him  and  his  raid,  562  seqq.; 
and  of  representative  newspapers,  568,  569; 
Victor  Hugo  quoted  concerning  him,  569, 
588;  report  of  the  minority  of  the  Mason 
committee,  580,  581;  and  of  the  majority, 
581,  582;  his  name  involved  in  speakership 
contest,  583,  584;  divergent  views  of  B  and 
his  achievements  fifty  years  after,  586;  the 
truth  lies  between  the  extreme  views,  586; 
a  fanatic,  but  one  of  those  fanatics  who,  by 
their  readiness  to  sacrifice  their  lives,  are  for 
ever  advancing  the  world,  587;  brave,  kind, 
honest,  truth-telling,  God-revering,  588  :  his 
rise  to  spiritual  greatness  after  his  sentence, 
588;  a  great  and  lasting  figure  in  American 
history,  588;  the  lesson  of  his  life,  588,  589. 

Chronology  of  his  movements,  Aug.  1855 
to  his  death,  672-678;  details  as  to  his  "  men- 
at-arms  "  at  Harper's  Ferry,  678-687. 

LETTERS  TO  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair,  136,  303, 
306,  Geo.  Adams,  542,  E.  B.,  539,  Wm. 
Barnes,  276,  283,  Jesse  Bowen,  388,  Ellen 
Brown,  398,  Frederick  Brown,  43,  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  34,  61,  62,  63,  64,  66,  67,  70,  79, 
86  and  n.,  343,  353,  354-356,  358,  407,  409, 
422,  423,  Mary  Anne  Brown,1  29,  30,  35,  64, 

1  Most  of  these  letters  were  written  to  Mrs. 
Brown  and  such  of  the  children  as  were  with 
her:  "  My  dear  wife  and  children  every  one." 


89,  118-120,  127, 128,  132,  148,  203,  248, 278, 
282,292,299,320,337,358,365,  383,  395,398, 
404,  409,  422,  537,  540,  541,  542,  551,  553, 
Levi  Burnell,  32,  33,  Amos  P.  Chamberlain, 
40,  Lydia  Maria  Child,  249,  his  children,  69, 
John  W.  Cook,  85,  J.  T.  Cox,  361,  Orson  Day, 
123,  127,  J.  R.  Giddings,  131,  G.  B.  Gill,  337, 


T.  W.  Higginson,  320,  513,  543,  W.  A.  Hodges, 
Hu 

Zenas  Kent,  26,  J.  H.  Lane,  301,  A.  ATllaw- 


72,  L.  Humphrey,  543,  A.  Hunter,  548,  J.  H. 
Kagi,  397,  402,  406,  408,  Geo.  Kellogg,  31, 


MW4MCQ     «M»UV«     *\Jt     J.     iA.     AVdllt,     3\J  L  t     ^X.     iT. .     J_fd  W 

rence,  279,  Rev.  Mr.  McFarland,  545,  Theo. 
Parker,  324,  S.  Perkins,  59,  F.  B.  Sanborn, 
294,  302,  319,  320,  322,  353,  354,  Geo.  L. 
Stearns,  281,  305,  320,  Mrs.  Stearns,  551, 
H.  L.  Stearns,  1-7,  John  Teesdale,  93,  386, 
Eli  Thayer,  287,  Ruth  B.  Thompson,  324, 
Aug.  Wattles,  290,  292. 

LETTERS  FROM  John  Brown,  Jr.,  82,  83, 
229  n.,  290,  Mahala  Doyle,  164,  T.  W.  Hig 
ginson,  338,  397,  J.  H.  Holmes,  300,  J.  H. 
Lane,  300,  301,  304,  A.  A.  Lawrence,  280,  C. 
Robinson,  262,  263,  H.  Stratton,  235  n.,  Aug. 
Wattles,  30,  Horace  White,  269. 

Brown,  John,  autobiography  of,  43,  86,  87. 

Brown,  John,  children  of,  general  characteris 
tics,  21. 

Brown,  John,  Jr.,  oldest  son  of  B,  quoted  con 
cerning  B  and  the  Free  Masons,  26;  his  con 
flicting  statements  as  to  date  of  B's  requiring 
his  family  to  swear  to  fight  slavery,  46;  in 
Springfield  office  of  Perkins  and  Brown,  59; 
goes  to  Kansas,  75,  76;  his  narrative  of  the 
expedition,  in  the  Cleveland  Leader  (1883), 
81,82;  describes  conditions  in  Kansas  and  rec 
ommends  arming  anti-slaverymen  there,  83, 
84;  his  "  shanty  "  at  Osawatomie,  89;  and  the 
Indians,  90;  vice-president  of  Free  State  con 
vention  at  Lawrence,  91;  member  of  first 
Territorial  Executive  Com.,  91;  defies  penal 
code  of  Shawriee  Legislature,  92;  at  Free 
State  convention,  102;  at  convention  of 
radical  Free  State  men,  103;  nominated  for 
Territorial  legislature,  127,  and  elected,  130; 
incident  of  the  claim-jumper,  130;  attends 
session  of  Legislature,  132,  133;  on  committee 
to  memorialize  Congress  for  admission  of 
Kansas  to  statehood,  133;  other  legislative 
service  of,  133;  on  B's  surveying  tour,  136;  in 
Judge  Cato's  court,  136;  his  article  in  the 
Cleveland  Leader  (1883),  quoted,  149,  152, 
153;  and  the  Pottawatomie  murders,  149 
seqq.;  camps  at  Prairie  City,  en  route  to  re 
lief  of  Lawrence,  149,  150;  camp  broken  up  by 
U.  S.  cavalry,  150;  deposed  from  command  by 
company,  for  freeing  two  slaves,  150;  another 
reason  for  his  deposition,  151;  vainly  opposes 
return  of  slaves  to  their  masters.isi ;  returns 
to  camp  after  the  murders,  165;  his  feeling 
concerning  them,  166;  returns  to  Osawa 
tomie  with  "  Pottawatomies,"  166;  taken  in 
by  the  Adairs,  166;  his  distress  deprives  him 
of  reason,  166,  167;  affirms  the  reality  of  the 
unidentified  "  messenger,"  175;  charges  Rob 
inson  with  urging  his  father  to  other  killings, 
184;  arrested,  193;  maltreated  by  Border 
Ruffians  after  arrest,  194  seqq.;  driven  on 
foot  from  Paola  to  Osawatomie,  195;  his  con 
dition  of  mind  and  body,  195,  196;  treatment 
of,  causes  indignation  in  North,  197;  taken  to 
Lecompton  and  held  in  custody  on  charge  of 
high  treason,  197;  Capt.  Walker's  testimony 
concerning  him  and  B,  228,  229;  released 
September  10,  1856,  254,  255;  goes  to  Iowa 
with  B,  261;  controversy  with  Gov.  Robin 
son,  263;  with  B,  in  Chicago,  269;  disturbed 
by  B's  proposed  return  to  Kansas,  290;  hia 
views  of  the  situation  there,  291;  with  Bin 
Philadelphia,  323;  entrusted  with  forwarding 
of  arms  to  Chambersburg,  Pa.,  406,  407;  hii 


INDEX 


719 


mental  condition,  406,  413,  414;  effect  of  his 
aberration,  414;  has  ill-success  in  obtaining 
recruits,  414;  warned  by  Kagi  and  B  of  immi 
nence  of  attack  on  Harper's  Ferry,  422,  423; 
his  extraordinary  statements,  423;  his  mental 
derangement,  507;  reviews  his. father's  busi 
ness  mistakes,  593  n.  33;  19,  28,  36,  39,  56,  81, 
86,  106,  112,  118,  120,  121,  148,  178, 198,  207, 
210,  233,  249,  262,  277,  343,  396,  397,  401, 
402,  424,  516,  518,  533,  582,  601  n.  95-  Letters 
to  B,  82,  83,  222,  290,  Jason  Brown,  222, 
Mary  Anne  Brown,  92,  Hugh  Forbes,  318,  J.H. 
Kagi,  413,  F.  B.  Sanborn,  45;/rom  B,  34,  66, 
67,  86  and  n.,  353,  354-356,  358,  407,  409, 
C.  W.  Tayleure,  454,  455. 

Brown,  John  Carter,  280. 

Brown,  Capt.  John  E.,  commands  pro-slavery 
force  at  Sugar  Creek,  238. 

Brown,  Mrs.  John  E.,  238. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Martha  E.  (Brewster),  wife  of 
Oliver,  starts  for  Harper's  Ferry,  405;  sent 
away,  with  her  sister-in-law,  420;  417,  418, 
419,  422,  561. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Mary  Anne  (Day),  second  wife  of 
B,  24;  mother  of  thirteen  children,  25;  her 
sacrifices  for  the  cause  to  which  B  gave  his 
life,  25;  described  by  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  74;  B 
appeals  to  A.  A.  Lawrence  in  behalf  of,  280; 
unwilling  to  join  B  at  Harper's  Ferry,  405; 
urged  by  T.  W.  Higginson,  starts  to  visit  B 
after  sentence,  in  order  to  obtain  his  consent 
to  rescue,  513;  is  turned  back  by  B,  513; 
writes  to  Gov.  Wise,  549;  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
549;  last  interview  with  B,  550;  B's  body  de 
livered  to,  558;  36,  43,  45,  46,  53,  76,  88,  277, 
545,  546,  548,  555,  560,  570,  574.  Letters  from 
B,  128,  148,  248,  278,  282,  299,  320,  337, 
358,  365,  383,  398,  404,  409,  422,  537,  540, 
541,  542,  551,  553,  Mrs.  Jason  Brown,  112, 
Mrs.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  127,  Gov.  H.  A.  Wise, 
549. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Mary  E.  (Grant).  See  Grant, 
Mary  E. 

Brown,  Rev.  Nathan,  15. 

Brown,  O.  C.,  founder  of  Osawatomie,  reproves 
Pottawatomie  murderers,  167;  quoted,  con 
cerning  the  reign  of  terror  in  Osawatomie, 
214,  and  the  power  of  B's  name,  230;  his  safe 
robbed,  246. 

Brown,  Old  Man,  name  often  applied  to  B.  See 
Brown,  John,  of  Osawatomie. 

Brown,  Oliver,  son  of  B,  goes  to  Kansas,  76;  in 
cident  of  the  claim-jumper,  130;  on  B's  sur 
veying  tour,  133;  in  the  Pottawatomie  party, 
153;  his  hands  unstained,  158;  his  contest 
with  B,  223;  starts  for  Harper's  Ferry  with  B, 
402;  mortally  wounded,  441;  his  death,  448; 
sketch  of,  683,  684;  81  n.,  86,  112,  118,  160, 

198,    2IO,    222,    404,    405,    419,    42O,    422,    432, 

438,  439,  441,  537,  553.  558.  570. 

Brown,  Owen,  father  of  B,  descent  of,  i;  in  the 
War  of  1812,  4;  quoted  concerning  his  mo 
ther,  ii ;  stood  well  with  everybody,  n;  in 
one  locality  in  Ohio  51  years,  12;  marries 
Ruth  Mills,  12;  early  married  life  of.  at  Can 
ton,  Norfolk  and  Torrington,  Conn.,  and 
Hudson,  Ohio,  12,  13;  describes  conditions  in 
Ohio,  13;  marries  (2)  Sallie  Root,  and  (3) 
Lucy  Hinsdale,  14;  how  he  became  an  Aboli 
tionist,  14;  an  agent  of  the  Underground  Rail 
road  14;  ceases  to  support  Western  Reserve 
College,  15;  trustee  of  Oberlin  College,  15; 
loses  heavily  in  B's  insolvency,  28;  an  early 
subscriber  to  the  Liberator,  49;  his  philosophy 
of  marriage,  591  n.  10;  his  autobiography 
(MS.)  quoted,  n,  12-14;  30,  31,  43,  507.  Let 
ter  toE,  ii. 

Brown,  Owen,  son  of  B,  goes  to  Kansas,  76,  81; 
in  B's  Pottawatomie  party,  153;  personally 
concerned  in  Doyle  murders,  160;  and  the 


murder  of  Sherman,  162,  163,  164;  denied 
shelter  by  Adair,  167;  goes  to  Iowa  with  B, 
261;  leaves  Tabor  for  Kansas  with  B,  299; 
elected  "  Treasurer  "  at  Chatham  conven 
tion,  333;  starts  for  Harper's  Ferry  with  B, 
402;  left  on  guard  at  Kennedy  Farm,  426; 
escapes,  471;  sketch  of,  686;  his  diary, 
quoted,  31 1, 312, 315. 316 ;i9, 39, 45. 46,  72,  75, 

83,  120,  121,  165,  197.  198,  202,  208,  220,  222, 

262,  270,  294,  298,  302,  308,  329,  330,  343, 
344,  397,  402,  406,  407,  4H,  415,  4i6,  418, 
421,  424,  437,  446,  468. 

Brown,  Peter,  of  Windsor,  Conn.,  ancestor  of 
B,  not  the  Mayflower  Peter,  10,  591  n.  6. 

Brown,  Peter,  of  the  Mayflower,  10,  543. 

Brown,  Capt.  Reese  P.,  killed  at  Leavenworth, 
129,  133,  180,  352. 

Brown,  Ruth,  daughter  of  B.  See  Thompson, 
Mrs.  Ruth  (Brown). 

Brown,  Mrs.  Ruth  (Mills),  mother  of  B,  3,  12; 
death  of  (1808),  3,  13;  descent  of,  15;  insan 
ity  in  family  of,  507. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Sallie  (Root),  stepmother  of  B,  3, 
16. 

Brown,  Salmon,  brother  of  B,  12,  14. 

Brown,  Salmon,  son  of  B,  goes  to  Kansas,  76;  in 
Judge  Cato's  court,  135,  136;  concerning  B's 
surveying  tour,  137;  concerning  the  Pottawa 
tomie  plan,  151,  152;  in  the  Pottawatomie 
Earty,  153;  reports  effect  of  news  of  assault  on 
umner,  154;  as  to  the  time  chosen  for  mur 
ders,  i55;astoTownsley  and  Weiner,  157, 158; 
as  to  attack  on  Doyles,  159  seqq.;  personally 
concerned  in  latter,  160;  as  to  murders  of 
Wilkinson  and  W.  Sherman,  162,  164;  denies 
that  Judge  Wilson  was  on  proscribed  list,  165; 
denies  that  there  was  a  "  messenger,"  175;  or 
that  Pottawatomie  victims  were  "  tried  "  by 
jury,  184;  accidentally  wounded  after  Black 
Jack,  203,  210;  describes  contest  between  B 
and  Oliver,  223;  second  visit  to  Kansas,  269, 
270;  declines  to  join  B  at  Harper's  Ferry,  413; 
his  reasons  for  declining,  424;  as  to  B's  pecu 
liarities,  424;  as  to  "  retreat  "  from  Kansas  in 
1856,  616  n.  68;  20,  24,  54,  56,  72,  81  and  n., 
83,  91,  120,  121,  128,  149,  168  n.,  173,  177, 
183.  198,  202,  222,  405,  561.  Letter  to  B,  82, 
Rev.  Joshua  Young,  612,  n.  90. 

Brown,  Sarah,  daughter  of  B,  and  the  plan  to 
attack  Harper's  Ferry,  55;  quoted,  concern 
ing  Watson  Brown,  683;  405,  533. 

Brown,  Spencer  Kellogg,  244,  246,  250. 

Brown,  Rev.  Theodore,  alias  of  T.  W.  Higgin 
son,  573.  576. 

Brown,  Watson,  son  of  B,  not  personally  con 
cerned  in  Pottawatomie  murders,  159;  his  first 
journey  to  Kansas,  269,  270;  turns  back  at 
Tabor,  and  goes  with  B  to  North  Elba,  270; 
starts  for  Harper's  Ferry,  405;  mortally 
wounded  carrying  flag  of  truce,  439;  his  death 
described  by  C.  W.  Tayleure,  454,  455; 
sketch  of,  686;  20,  58,  72,  76,  407,  409,  414, 
419.  448,  449,  537.  553.  558  and  n.,  570.  Let 
ters  to  Mrs.  Isabella  Brown,  415,  416;  from 
Mrs.  Wealthy  Brown,  92. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Wealthy,  wife  of  John  Jr.,  describes 
conditions  at  Osawatomie,  88;  118.  Letters 
to  John  Jr.,  172,  Mary  Anne  Brown,  88,  89, 
127,  Watson  Brown,  92. 

"  Brown  and  Thompson's  addition  to  Franklin 
Village,"  27,  28. 

Brown  settlement,  near  Osawatomie,  various 
names  of,  112. 

Brown's  Station,  temporary  name  of  Brown  set 
tlement,  112. 

Browne,  Charles  F.    See  Ward,  Artemus. 

Browne,  William  Hand,  his  Maryland,  the  His 
tory  of  a  Palatinate,  quoted,  475. 

Brownsville,  temporary  name  of  Brown  settle 
ment,  82,  112. 


INDEX 


Brua,  Joseph  A.,  438,  439,  44<>,  443- 
Brussels,  visited  by  B,  62. 
Bryant,  Joseph,  and  Hugh  Forbes,  286;  293. 
Buchanan,  James,   Pres.  of  U.  S.,  and  Gov. 

Walker,  295;  offers  reward  for  capture  of  B, 

371;  notified  by  Garrett,  of  Harper's  Ferry 

raid,  434;  orders  artillery  and  marines  thither, 

449,  and  Robert  E.  Lee  and  J.  E.  B.  Stuart, 

450;  message  to  Congress  in  Dec.,  1859,  566; 

374,  381,  478.  523,  524. 
"  Buckskin,"  233. 
Buffum,  Dsvid  C.,  murdered,  260. 
Buford,  Major  Jefferson,  in  command  of  Border 

Ruffians  in  Kansas,  137,  138;  his  pro-slavery 

circular,  216;  appeals  for  aid,  231;  144,  146, 

150,  192. 
Bunyan,  John,  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  familiar 

to  B,  16. 
Burlington  (Iowa)   Gazette,  denounces  Potta- 

watomie  murders,  191. 
Burlington  Mills  Co.,  suit  against  Perkins  and 

Brown,  66. 
Burnell,  Levi,  treasurer  of  Oberlin  College,  32. 

Letters  from  B,  32,  33. 
Burns,  Anthony,  fugitive  slave,  384,  511. 
Burns,  Col.  James  N.,  disputes  Major  Clarke's 

claim  to  have  murdered  Barber,  126. 
Burns,  John,  520. 
Butler,  Rev.  Pardee,  maltreated  by  pro-slavery 

men,   no;  stripped  and  "cottoned,"   141. 
Buxton,  Canada,  327. 
Byrne,  Terence,  captured  by  B's  raiders,  437, 

439. 

Cabot,  James  Elliot,  A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo 

Emerson,  quoted,  282. 
Cabot,  Dr.  Samuel,  Jr.,  271,  275,  325. 
Cackler,  Christian,  the  Recollections  of  an  Old 

Settler,  quoted,  9. 
Calais  (France),  visited  by  B,  61. 
Calhoun,  John,  296,  307. 
California,  rush  of  gold-seekers  to,  80. 
Callender,  W.  H.  D.,  278,  279,  286. 
Campbell,  Bishop,  59. 
Campbell,  John  F.,  murdered  by  Hamilton  and 

his  men,  348,  375. 

Campbell,  Sheriff,  537,  538,  539,  SS6. 
Canterbury  (Conn.),  suppression  of  schools  for 

negroes  in,  45. 
Canton  (Conn.),  278,  279. 
Cantrall,  Mr.,  murder  of,  181,  213;  mock  trial 

of,  by  court-martial,  213. 
Carleton,  Silas,  533,  534. 
Carpenter,  Henry,  defection  of,  409;  576. 
Carpenter,  Howard,  198. 
Carpenter,    O.   A.,   guides   B's   Pottawatomie 

party  to  Ottawa  Creek,  198;  210. 
Carr,  a  settler,  239,  242. 
Carr,  Lieut.  Eugene  A.,  621  n.  86. 
Carrington,  Gen.  Henry  B.,  quoted,  47. 
Carruth,  James  H.,  167. 
Carter,  Mr.,  murder  of,  214. 
Carter,  Charles  P.,  alias  of  T.  W.  Higginson, 

Carter,  T.  W.,  agent  of  Mass.  Arms  Co.,  289. 

Case,  A.  H.,  quoted,  601  n.  104. 

Cass,  Lewis,  Sec'y  of  State,  letters  from  Gov. 
Denver,  351,  Acting-Gov.  Walsh,  364. 

Castele,  A.,  168. 

Cato,  Judge  Sterling  G.,  holds  court  at  Sher 
man  settlement,  135,  136;  issues  warrants 
for  arrest  of  the  Browns,  135;  137,  195,  254, 
260. 

Central  Committee  for  Kansas,  275. 

Chadwick,  Rear-Adm.  French  E.,  The  Causes  of 
the  Civil  War,  quoted,  341. 

Chamberlain,  Amos  P.,  and  the  "title  to  West- 
lands,  38  seqq.;  B's  quarrel  with,  39-41,  593 
n.  49.  Letter  from  B,  40. 

Chambers,  George  W.,  shoots  A.  D.  Stevens, 


439;  and  the  killing  of  W.  Thompson,  442; 
491. 

Chambersburg  (Penn.),  Kagi's  headquarters  at, 
406,  407. 

Chapin,  Messrs.,  278. 

Chapin,  Lou  V.,  Last  Days  of  Old  John  Brown, 
quoted,  36. 

Charleston  Convention,  1860,  585. 

Charleston  Courier,  quoted,  97. 

Charleston  Independent  Democrat,  B  quoted 
in,  545. 

Charleston  Mercury,  quoted,  97,  568. 

Charles  Town  (West  Va.) ,  429.  And  see  Charles- 
town. 

Charlestown  (Va.),  news  of  raid  carried  to,  by 
Dr.  Starry,  436;  dread  of  a  slave  rising,  436; 
militia  and  other  volunteers  turn  out,  436;  B 
and  others  lodged  in  jail,  470;  trial  of  B,  486 
seqq.;  reception  of  verdict,  497;  self-control 
of  people  after  sentence,  499,  500;  proposed 
attack  on,  516  seqq.;  rescue  scares,  519,  520; 
numerous  fires,  520;  end  of  reign  of  terror, 
522;  preparations  for  execution,  522  seqq. 

"  Charley."    See  Kaiser,  Charles. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  Gov.  of  Ohio,  271  and  n.," 
298,  524. 

Chatham  (Canada),  convention  of  B's  followers 
there,  330  seqq.;  really  two  conventions,  331; 
327,  328. 

Chatham  Convention,  proceedings  of,  330  seqq.; 
oath  of  secrecy  imposed,  333;  "  Provisional 
Constitution  "  adopted,  333;  second  conven 
tion  called  under  new  constitution,  333;  offi 
cers  elected  at,  333;  list  of  colored  men  in  at 
tendance,  628  n.  55. 

Chicago  Tribune,  46,  352. 

Child,  D.  Lee,  293. 

Child,  Lydia  Maria,  her  proposed  visit  to  B,  479 
n.;  510.  Letter  to  Gov.  Wise,  479. 

Chilton,  Samuel,  retained  by  John  A.  Andrew 
to  defend  B,  493;  prays  that  government  be 
required  to  elect  on  which  count  they  will 
proceed,  494,  495;  argues  for  defence,  496; 
motion  in  arrest  of  judgment,  497. 

Chippewa  Indians,  9. 

Church  Anti-Slavery  Society,  B  at  meeting  in 
Boston,  400. 

Church,  Lieut.  John  R.,  breaks  up  John  Brown, 
Jr.'s  camp,  150. 

Claim- Jumper,  a,  expulsion  of,  by  minute-men, 
130. 

Clark,  Malcolm,  killed  by  C.  McCrea,  109,  no. 

Clark,  Rev.  Wm.  C.,  assault  on,  in. 

Clarke,  Major  Geo.  E.,  soi-disant  murderer  of 
Barber,  126,  352. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  Anti-Slavery  Days, 
Gen.  Carrington  quoted  in,  47;  his  characteri 
zation  of  B,  186,  187;  213,  326,  327. 

Clarke,  Wm.  Penn,  388,  390. 

Clay,  C.  C.,  quoted,  584- 

Cleveland  (Ohio),  public  sentiment  in,  394. 

Cleveland  Herald,  quoted,  569. 

Cleveland  Leader,  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  statement 
in  (1883),  81,  82,  149;  announces  B's  lecture, 
March  18,  1859,  391;  its  report  of  the  lec 
ture,  393;  and  the  raid,  472. 

Cleveland  Plain  Dealer,  "  Artemus  Ward's  "  de 
scription  of  B  and  Kagi  in,  391,  392;  and  of 
B's  lecture,  392,  393. 

Cline,  Capt.  James  B.,  his  company  marches 
south  from  Osawatomie  with  B,  236:  meets 
pro-slavery  force  at  South  Middle  Creek  and 
puts  it  to  flight,  237;  accidental  collision  with 
B's  company,  237;  in  battle  of  Osawatomie, 
244;  238,  239,  249. 

Cochrane,  Benjamin,  200,  293. 

Cochren,  Benjamin  L.,  121. 

Coffee,  Gen.,  and  Col.  Sumner,  209. 

Coffin,  W.  H.  The  Settlement  of  the  Friends  in 
Kansas,  192. 


INDEX 


721 


Coine,  W.  W.,  121.  *•»* 

Colby,  Deputy  Marshal,  381. 

Coleman,  E.  A.,  reports  B's  words  justifying 
Pottawatomie  murders,  179. 

Coleman,  Franklin  N.,  murderer  of  C.  Dow, 
113;  political  consequences  of  his  act,  113 
seqq.;  suspected  of  shooting  Stewart,  142. 

Coleman,  William,  343. 

Collamer,  Jacob,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Vermont, 
of  minority  of  Mason  Committee,  580. 

Collins,  Samuel,  shot  by  P.  Laughlin,  112,  113, 
180. 

Collinsville  (Conn.),  278,  279. 

Collis,  Daniel  W.,  121. 

Columbia  (Mo.)  Statesman,  99. 

Colpetzer,  William,  murdered  by  Hamilton's 
gang,  348,  375- 

Colt,  Mrs.  M.  D.,  Went  to  Kansas,  89  n. 

Concord  (Mass.),  B's  address  at,  in  May,  1859, 
398;  arrest  of  F.  B.  Sanborn  at,  533,  534- 

Congress  of  the  U.  S.,  and  the  Lecompton  Con 
stitution,  347;  passes  the  English  compro 
mise,  347. 

Conkling,  Rev.  Mr.,  68. 

Contempt  of  court,  extraordinary  charge  of, 
made  by  Sheriff  Jones,  140. 

Con  way,  Martin  F.,  Free  State  leader,  101,  103, 
106,  272,  277,  282,  293,  296,  359,  360. 

Cook,  Gen.  Joe,  alias  of  J.  H.  Lane,  225,  231, 
5  n.,  252. 

,  John  E.,  B's  first  recruit  for  Harper's 
Ferry,  307,  308;  his  confession,  308,  680;  de 
scribes  B's  recruiting  operations,  308;  has 
words  with  B  about  Virginia  plan,  310,  311; 
corresponds  with  friends  in  Springdale,  330; 
his  indiscretion,  338;  sent  to  Harper's  Ferry 
to  reconnoitre,  in  June,  1858,  344;  lock- 
tender  there,  408;  his  perilous  loquacity,  408; 
with  the  rear-guard,  446,  447;  arrested  in 
Penn.,  487;  convicted  and  sentenced,  569, 
570;  executed,  after  almost  escaping,  570- 
572;  sketch  of,  680,  681;  142,  215,  216,  315, 
329,  412,  415,  419,  426,  427,  429,  431,  435, 
437,  468,  469,  471,  477,  478,  483,  510,  53L 
554- 

Cook,  John  W.,  letter  from  B,  84. 

Cooke,  Lt.-Col.  Philip  St.  George,  reports  as  to 
changed  conditions  in  Kansas,  213,  214;  de 
clines  to  obey  Woodson's  order  to  invest  To- 
peka,  250,  251;  and  Lane  and  Walker's  de 
monstration  against  Lecompton,  252;  his 
good  advice  to  them  rejected,  252;  escorts 
Gov.  Geary  to  Lawrence,  257;  with  Gov. 
Geary  averts  threatened  attack  on  Lawrence, 
259;  narrowly  misses  arresting  B,  261;  211, 
217,  258,  260. 

Cooper  Union,  New  York,  great  meeting  in,  562. 

Copeland,  John  Anthony,  Jr.,  in  the  Harper's 
Ferry  party,  415.  421,  431;  captured,  445: 
saved  from  being  lynched  by  Dr.  Starry,  445; 
convicted  and  sentenced,  569,  57o;  executed, 
570;  sketch  of,  684;  454,  486,  572. 

Coppoc,  Barclay,  joins  B  at  Springdale,  328, 
3  9;  in  Harper's  Ferry  party,  414,  420,  421; 
left  on  guard  at  Kennedy  Farm,  426;  final 
escape  of,  471;  sketch  of,  682,  683;  446,  468, 
S7i. 

Coppoc,  Edwin,  joins  B  at  Springdale,  328,  329; 
in  Harper's  Ferry  party,  414,  421,  426,  430, 
441,  449;  kills  Mayor  Beckham,  441;  made 
prisoner  in  engine  house,  454;  trial  of,  497; 
convicted  and  sentenced.  569,  570;  commuta 
tion  of  sentence  prevented  by  his  letter  to 
Mrs.  Brown,  570;  executed  after  almost  escap 
ing,  570-572;  sketch  of,  682;  470,  471,  486. 

Coppoc,  Mrs.,  mother  of  Barclay  and  Edwin, 
329.  57i. 

Cox,  J.  T.,  letter  from  B,  361. 

Cracklin,  Capt.  Jos.,  in  command  of  defence  of 
Lawrence,  258. 


Craft,  Ellen,  384. 

Crafts  and  Still,  letter  from  Perkins  and  Brown, 

59- 
Crane,  Smith,  and  his  tale  of  rescuers  from 

Kansas,  520,  521. 

Cransdell,  Archie,  shoots  Dutch  Henry  Sher 
man,  236. 
Crawford,  Geo.  A.,  his  interview  with  B  in  Jan. 

i859,374,375;370.  Letters  to  Eh  Thayer,374, 

608  n.  12. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  life  of,  one  of  the  books  which 

influenced  B,  16. 

Cross,  Mr.,  taken  prisoner  by  the  raiders,  439. 
Cruise,  David,  murdered  by  A.  D.  Stevens  in 

Missouri  raid,  369;  great  excitement  caused 

by  his  death,  370. 

Curtis,  Geo.  William,  quoted,  563,  564. 
Cushing,  Caleb,  on  the  law  of  B's  case,  644  n. 

28;  565. 
Cutter,  George,  a  Free  State  settler,  239,  242; 

seriously  wounded,  243. 
Cyrus,  negro  boy,  75. 

Daingerfield,  J.  E.  P.,  paymaster's  clerk  of  the 
armory  at  Harper's  Ferry,  439,  443 ;  his  con 
versation  with  B,  443. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  Jr.,  How  we  met  John  Brown. 
quoted,  74;  entertained  by  B  at  No.  Elba,  74; 
his  description  of  B,  his  family,  and  his  home, 
74- 

Daniels,  Jim,  slave,  whose  appeal  led  to  B's 
Missouri  raid,  367,  368,  376. 

Davenport,  Col.  Braxton,  presiding  justice  at 
preliminary  hearing  in  case  of  B  and  others, 
487. 

David,  William,  293. 

Davis,  Henry,  Border  Ruffian,  killed  by  Lucius 
Kibbey,  109. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  as  Sec'y  of  War,  censures  Col. 
Sumner,  217;  and  Col.  Sumner,  217,  218, 
219;  instructions  to  Gen.  Smith,  251;  as  U.  S. 
Senator  from  Miss.,  quoted,  565;  joins  in  re 
port  of  majority  of  Mason  Committee,  580; 
130.  Letter  to  Col.  Sumner,  218. 

Davis,  Col.  J.  Lucius,  quoted,  519,  520  and  n.; 
521,  522. 

Davis,  S.  C.,  letter  from  S.  L.  Adair,  253  n. 

Davis,  Mrs.  S.  C.,  quoted,  270  n. 

Day,  Charles,  father  of  B's  second  wife,  24. 

Day,  Horace  H.,  178. 

Day,  Mary  Anne,  married  to  B  (1833),  24,  25. 
See  Brown,  Mary  Anne  (Day).  Sister  of 

Day, Orson, 71, 148, 178.  Letters fromB,  123, 127. 

Dayton,  Oscar  V.,  secretary  of  settlers'  meeting 
at  Osawatomie,  135. 

Deitzler,  Geo.  W.,  indicted  for  treason,  142; 
arrested,  145;  98. 

Delahay,  Mark  W.,  Free  Soil  candidate  for 
delegate  in  Congress,  129. 

Delamater,  Geo.  B.,  24,  46. 

Delany,  Dr.  Martin  R.,  colored,  328,  331,  333. 

Democratic  pro-slavery  press,  and  the  Potta 
watomie  murders,  191;  and  the  Harper's 
Ferry  raid,  471,  472. 

Democrats,  Northern,  vote  for  Kansas-Ne 
braska  Act,  80. 

Denver,  James  Wilson,  Acting-Gov.  and  Gov. 
of  Kansas,  adjusts  troubles  growing  out  of 
Marais  des  Cygnes  massacre,  349,  350;  hos 
tile  to  Montgomery,  351;  his  peace  compact 
substantially  renewed  by  Sugar  Mound  Con 
vention,  366;  346, 364, 376.  Letter  to  Secretary 
Cass,  351. 

Des  Moines  (Iowa),  387. 

Dix,  John  A.,  563. 

Donaldson,  J.  B.,  U.  S.  marshal,  his  proclama 
tion  to  law-abiding  citizens,  143;  is  sent  first 
to  pro-slavery  strongholds,  143;  his  forces 
composed  of  Border  Ruffians,  144, 145;  144  n., 
180,  185,  2ii,  252,  254. 


722 


INDEX 


Doniphan  (Kansas),  scene  of  murder  of  Saml. 
Collins,  112. 

Doolittle,  James  R.,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Wiscon 
sin,  of  minority  of  Mason  Com.,  580. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Illi 
nois,  favors  Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  80;  and 
the  Toombs  bill,  227;  opposed  to  Lecompton 
Constitution,  306,  3475  quoted,  365;  nomin 
ated  for  President,  585. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  his  Life  and  Times  of 
Frederick  Douglass,  quoted,  47,  48,  57,  58; 
describes  B's  home  in  Springfield,  Mass.,  and 
his  personal  aspect,  57,  58;  urges  contribu 
tions  for  B,  at  Syracuse  convention,  85;  B's 
first  confidant  as  to  his  Virginia  plan,  317;  B 
visits  him  early  in  1858,  317;  gives  money  to 
Forbes,  317;  B's  disappointment  with  him, 
323;  feeling  of  B's  family  toward  him,  323, 
627  n.  33;  at  final  conference  with  B  disap 
proves  plan  of  raid,  412,  413;  withdraws  his 
support  from  B,  413;  leaves  the  country  after 
the  raid,  529;  67,  269,  390,  398. 

Dow,  Charles,  shot  by  F.  N.  Coleman,  113,  180. 

Doy,  Dr.  John,  captured  with  his  liberated 
slaves,  and  rescued,  380;  511,  514,  546,  575- 

Doyle,  Mr.,  husband  of  Mahala,  and  father  of 
Drury,  John,  and  William;  murder  of,  159 
seqq. 

Doyle,  Drury,  murder  of,  159  seqq. 

Doyle,  John,  quoted  concerning  Doyle  murders, 
160;  164. 

Doyle,  Mrs.  Mahala,  describes  murder  of  her 
husband  and  sons,  158  seqq.;  Salmon  Brown 
concerning,  159;  156,  190,  195.  Letter toB,  164. 

Doyle,  William,  murder  of,  159  seqq. 

Doyle  family,  on  Pottawatomie  Creek,  character 
of,  156;  attack  on,  158-161;  John  Doyle  and 
Townsley  concerning  mutilation  of  their 
bodies,  160, 161 ;  alleged  intimidation  by,  172; 
and  the  Morse  case,  174;  said  by  some  to 
have  deserved  their  fate,  180. 

Dunbar,  Jennie  (Mrs.  Garcelon),  572. 

Duncan,  L.  A.,  388. 

Dutch  Henry.   See  Sherman,  Henry. 

Dutch  Henry's  Crossing,  151,  155,  157. 

Duty  of  the  Soldier,  The,  by  Hugh  Forbes,  297, 
298;  disapproved  by  Sanborn  and  Theodore 
Parker,  298. 

Eastin,  Brig.-Gen.  Lucien  J.,  publishes  call  to 
arms  against  Free  State  men,  116;  Woodson's 
letter  to  him  denounced  as  forgery,  116. 

Easton  (Kansas),  Leavenworth  election  held  at 
(Jan.  1856),  128. 

Edwards,  Rev.  Jona.,  his  works  owned  by  B,  16. 

Eldredge,  Col.,  260. 

Eldridge,  Charles,  574. 

Elections  Committee  of  House  of  Representa 
tives  reports  against  Whitfield  and  in  favor  of 
Reeder  as  delegate,  226. 

Elgin  Association,  a  colony  for  escaped  slaves, 
327. 

Eliot,  George,  Adam  Bede,  326. 

Elliott,  R.  G.,  quoted,  122,  230,  307. 

Ellsworth,  Alfred  M.,  elected  member  of  Con 
gress,  at  Chatham  Convention,  333. 

Elmore,  Rush,  Justice  of  Kansas  Terr.,  upholds 
legality  of  Shawnee  Legislature,  100;  377, 
378. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  meets  B,  273;  quoted, 
282.  560,  563;  as  to  B's  speech  before  sentence, 
646  n  81;  561. 

Emigrant  Aid  Societies,  New  England,  recruits 
of,  in  Kansas,  95,  96;  98,  265. 

Emigrant  Aid  Society,  ships  Sharp's  rifles  to 
C.  Robinson,  98;  saw-mill  of,  at  Osawa- 
tomie  spared  by  Border  Ruffians,  246;  146, 
227. 

English  bill,  The,  a  compromise  measure  passed 

..    by  Congress,  347 ;  a  pro-slavery  victory,  347 ; 


a  bribe  to  Kansas  to  accept  Lecompton  Con 
stitution,  347. 

Epps,  Lyman,  colored  neighbor  of  B  at  No. 
Elba,  55.  562. 

Erickson,  Aaron,  concerning  B's  insanity,  595  n. 
33. 

Ervin,  Dr.,  369. 

Everett,  Edward,  565. 

Executive  Committee.  See  Free  State  Execu 
tive  Committee  and  Territorial  Executive 
Committee. 

Fablinger,  Mrs.  Ellen  (Brown),  daughter  of  B, 
405.  Letter  from  B,  398. 

Fain,  U.  S.  Deputy  Marshal,  at  Free  State  Ho 
tel,  145;  makes  arrests  in  Lawrence,  143. 

Fairfield,  temporary  name  of  Brown  settlement 
near  Osawatomie,  112. 

Faneuil  Hall,  Union  meeting  in,  562,  563,  565. 

Faulkner,  Charles  J.,  assigned  as  counsel  for 
B,  and  declines,  483;  his  opinion  of  the  trial, 
483;  456,  486,  487.  Letter  to  M.  W.  Cluskey, 
483;  from  A.  H.  Lewis,  506. 

Fauquier  Cavalry,  549. 

Fayette,  Mr.,  a  colored  preacher,  45,  46. 

Feather stonhaugh,  Dr.  Thomas,  558  n. 

Fessenden,  Wm.  Pitt,  letter  from  John  A.  An 
drew,  530. 

Field,  David  Dudley,  230. 

Filer,  James  N.,  shoots  Sheriff  Jones,  140. 

Fisher,  Ellwood,  letter  to  Gov.  Wise,  47  n.  93. 

Fitch,  G.  N.,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Indiana,  joins 
in  majority  report  of  Mason  Com.,  580. 

Flanders  farm  at  No.  Elba,  hired  by  B,  72. 

Flirt  (yacht),  515. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  Sec'y  of  War,  anonymous  letter 
to,  denouncing  B's  plan,  410;  discredits  the 
warning,  410;  publishes  the  letter  after  the 
raid,  411;  450,  470.  And  see  "  Floyd  letter." 

"  Floyd  letter,"  authorship  and  motive  of,  411. 
And  see  Gue,  David  J. 

Fobes,  E.  Alexander,  343,  406. 

Forbes,  Hugh,  B's  first  acquaintance  with,  285; 
his  antecedents  and  character,  285;  becomes 
instructor  of  B's  "  volunteer-regular  "  com 
pany,  286;  his  Manual  of  the  Patriotic  Volun 
teer,  286,  298,  313;  B  becomes  suspicious  of 
him,  286;  money  raised  by  him,  287;  his  The 
Duty  of  the  Soldier,  297,  298;  his  usefulness  to 
B  of  brief  duration,  298;  disagreement  with 
B  as  to  future  operations,  299;  denounces  the 
"  Humanitarians,"  299;  his  differences  with  B, 
313,  314;  his  own  plan,  314;  abuses  B  and  his 
supporters,  317  seqq.;  his  blackmailing  oper 
ations,  317,  3i8;  postponement  of  B's  plan 
caused  by  his  threats,  etc.,  338,  339;  quoted, 
467  n.;  authorities  for  story  of  B's  relations 
with  him,  624  n.  49;  291,  293,  302,  304,  337, 
338,  340,  343,  396,  478,  531.  Letters  to  S. 
G.  Howe,  313,  318;  from  John  Brown  Jr., 
318. 

Forbes,  John  M.,  his  impressions  of  B,  398,  399. 

Foreman,  James,  recollections  of  B's  early  life, 
21-23,  25;  does  not  mention  B's  project  of 
abolishing  slavery,  46,  47.  Letter  to  James 
Redpath,  21-23. 

Fort  Scott  (Kansas),  young  men  of,  form  a 
watch-guard,  192,  193;  attempt  to  burn,  349, 
351;  "  the  only  place  in  Kansas  where  the 
Border  Ruffians  now  (April,  1858)  show  their 
teeth,"  352;  attacked  by  Montgomery,  366; 
evil  effects  of  attack  on,  366,  367. 

Foster,  Abby  Kelley,  50  and  n. 

Foster,  Daniel,  293. 

Fouke,  Christine,  442. 

Fowler,  O.  S.,  phrenologist,  on  B,  20. 

Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Paper,  520. 

Frankfort  (Ky.)  Yeoman,  quoted,  502. 

Franklin  (Kansas),  attacked  by  Major  Abbott, 
212;  second  Free  State  attack  on,  230,  231. 


INDEX 


723 


Franklin,  Benjamin,  influence  of  his  writings  on 

B,  16,  50. 

Franklin  Land  Co.,  27. 
Franklin  Mills  (Ohio) ,  26  seqq. 
Frazee,  Mr.,  292,  293. 
Frederick  (Md.),  militia  of,  at  Harper's  Ferry, 

Frederick  the  Great,  sword  reputed  to  have 
been  given  by  him  to  Geo.  Washington,  431, 
worn  by  B  throughout  the  fight,  447. 

Free  Soil.    See  Free  State. 

Free  State  cause,  helped  on  by  Lawrence  out 
rages,  146;  lost  a  great  moral  advantage  by 
Pottawatomie  murders,  187,  188;  prejudiced 
by  Montgomery's  attack  on  Fort  Scott,  366, 
367. 

Free  State  Central  Committee,  304. 

Free  State  Convention,  at  Lawrence,  resolu 
tions  of,  91 ;  in  Topeka,  in  1857,  295,  296. 

Free  State  election  of  Aug.  9,  1857,  296. 

Free  State  emigrants,  in  Lane's  "  caravan," 
225;  Missouri  River  closed  against,  225;  go 
from  Chicago  to  Kansas  via  Iowa  and  Ne 
braska,  225;  forwarded  by  National  Kansas 
Com.,  227. 

Free  State  Executive  Committee,  appointed  by 
Topeka  Convention,  108. 

Free  State  Hotel  at  Lawrence,  meetings  at,  123, 
124;  its  demolition  recommended  by  U.  S. 
Grand  Jury,  143;  demolished,  145,  146. 

Free  State  leaders,  the  claim  that  B  was  carry 
ing  out  their  orders  in  Pottawatomie  exploit, 
180,  182. 

Free  State  Legislature,  election  of  members 
of,  128;  assembles,  elects  U.  S.  senators,  me 
morializes  Congress  for  admission  of  Kansas, 
and  is  dispersed  by  Sumner's  troops,  132; 
only  fifteen  members  sign  memorial  to  Con 
gress,  133- 

Free  State  men,  code  of  punishments  for,  en 
acted  byShawnee  Legislature,  91;  early  drift 
of  affairs  in  Kansas  adverse  to,  94;  fewer  in 
numbers  at  first  than  bona-fide  Missouri  set 
tlers,  95;  elected  to  Kansas  Legislature  and 
ousted  by  pro-slavery  majority,  99;  decide  to 
repudiate  Shawnee  Legislature,  101-103; 
their  policy,  to  call  a  constitutional  conven 
tion,  101,  102;  of  divers  opinions,  101;  classed 
as  moderates  and  radicals,  102;  jealousies 
among,  102;  six  conventions  of,  June  8  to 
Aug.  14,  1855,  102,  103;  conflict  of  opinion 
between  radicals  and  moderates,  102;  two 
conventions  on  same  day,  distinction  be 
tween,  103;  two  constitutional  conventions 
called,  103;  forced  to  abandon  platform  of 
Big  Springs  Convention,  104;  hold  Topeka 
Constitutional  Convention,  105;  abstain 
from  voting  for  delegate  in  election  ordered 
by  Shawnee  Legislature,  106;  elect  Reeder  at 
election  ordered  by  Big  Springs  Convention, 
106;  appointment  of  Howard  Com.  a  triumph 
for  them,  107;  duality  of  management  among, 
107;  enraged  by  McCrea-Clark  murder,  109; 
rescue  of  Branson  by,  113,  114;  answer  to  ap 
peal  for  help  from  Lawrence,  1 18 ;  B's  descrip 
tion  of  the  relief  expedition,  118-120;  de 
nounced  by  Pres.  Pierce  in  special  message  to 
Congress,  130;  several  indicted  for  treason 
after  Pottawatomie,  142,  143;  their  attitude 
toward  the  murders,  167,  168,  169,  170;  no 
law  for  them  in  Kansas,  180,  181 ;  some  of  the 
indicted  men  arrested,  192;  others  banished, 
192;  out,  under  arms,  after  the  murders,  197; 
Pate's  prisoners  released  by  B,  208;  after 
Black  Jack  fight,  208;  attack  and  sack  Frank 
lin,  212;  their  robberies  treated  as  lawful  acts 
of  war  by  Northern  press,  212;  less  guilty 
than  pro-slavery  men  in  respect  of  crimes  of 
violence,  215;  aggressive  guerrilla  warfare 
carried  on  by,  215,  216,  229  seqq.;  drive  out 


pro-slavery  settlement  at  New  Georgia,  229; 
second  attack  on  Franklin,  230,  231;  enraged 
by  murder  of  Major  Hoyt,  231;  attack 
"  Fort  "  Saunders,  231;  real  fighting  at 
"  Fort  "  Titus,  231 ;  Lt.-Col.  Cooke's  good  ad 
vice,  252;  movement  against  Leavenworth, 
253,  254;  offer  command  to  B,  then  to  Col. 
Harvey,  254;  large  number  in  confinement, 
256;  Capt.  Wood's  "  haul  "  checks  their  law 
lessness,  256;  from  Iowa,  including  S.  C. 
Pomeroy,  arrested,  260;  losses  between  Nov. 
1855  and  Dec.  1856,  264;  indictments  on  Pot 
tawatomie  score  nol  pros'd,  294;  pouring  into 
Kansas  in  1857,  295;  decline  to  take  part  in 
election  of  delegates  to  Constitutional  Con 
vention,  June,  1857,  296;  vote  at  Free  State 
election  in  Aug.  shows  their  preponderance  in 
Kansas,  296;  vote  at  Grasshopper  Falls  to  take 
part  in  election  of  delegate,  296;  predomin 
ance  of  peace  party  among,  296;  victorious 
in  election  of  Territorial  Legislature  and  dele 
gate,  Oct.  1857,  306;  decide  to  work  under  ex 
isting  government,  307;  and  the  Marais  des 
Cygnes  massacre,  348,  349;  in  southeastern 
Kansas,  352;  in  joint  meeting  with  pro-slav 
ery  men,  adopt  B  s  peace  agreement,  366. 

Free  State  movement,  great  gains  of,  in  1855, 
108. 

Free  State  party,  divided  counsels  of,  in  first 
territorial  election,  95;  defeated  in  second 
election,  98  seqq.;  vote  of,  cast  for  Delahay  as 
delegate  and  C.  Robinson  for  governor,  Jan. 
1856,  129;  blamed  for  incident  in  Judge 
Cato's  court,  137,  and  for  Pottawatomie 
murders,  190;  its  position  and  prospects  in 
June,  1858, 346  seqq.;  refrains  from  voting  at 
first  election  on  Lecompton  Constitution, 
346;  at  second  election  secures  rejection  of 
the  constitution,  346. 

Free  State  settlers,  reports  of  threats  against 
those  near  Osawatomie,  not  spread  by  any 
one  man,  177;  general  threats  against,  prob 
ably  B's  impelling  motive  in  Pottawatomie 
murders,  177,  178;  some  deed  of  violence 
thought  by  some  necessary  to  rouse  them, 
180;  their  previous  good  reputation  of  value 
to  them  in  the  crisis,  191,  192;  criticised  by 
Democrats,  226. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  220,  265. 

Fremont-Buchanan  campaign  of  1856,  Kansas 
a  leading  issue  in,  226. 

Frothingham,  Octavius  B.,  his  Life  of  Gerrit 
Smith,  quoted,  535,  536;  627  n.  27. 

Fugit  (or  Fugert),  Mr.,  murders  Wm.  Hoppe  on 
a  wager,  215;  tried  and  acquitted,  215;  352. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  50,  74,  75. 

Fuller,  Abram,  381. 

Fuller,  Bain,  153. 

Fuller,  W.  B.,  246. 

Fulton  (Mo.)  Telegraph,  99. 

Furness,  Wm.  H.,  560;  quoted  as  to  B's  speech 
before  sentence,  646  n.  81. 

Gait  House,  Harper's  Ferry,  429,  439,  440. 
Garcelon,  Mrs.  Jennie  Dunbar.    See  Dunbar, 

Jennie. 

Gardner,  Joseph,  575,  576,  578,  580. 
Garnett,  Rev.  H.  H.,  colored,  323. 
Garrett,  John  W.,  Pres.  B.  &  O.  R.  R.,  acts  on 

news  of  hold-up  of  train,  434;  449,  519. 
Garrison,  David,  murder  of ,  181,  210,  242,  243. 
Garrison,  Wendell  P.  The  Preludes  of  Harper's 

Ferry,  46  and  n.,  594  n.  2. 
Garrison,   Wendell  P.  and  Francis   J.,  their 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  quoted,  272. 
Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  his  first  meeting  with 

B,  and  his  impressions,   271,  272;    quoted, 

500,  654  n.  9;  at  Tremont  Temple  meeting, 

560;  his  sonnet,  Freedom  of  the  Mind,  651  n. 

84;  SO,  139,  191,510,  562,  565. 


724 


INDEX 


Garrisonian  doctrine  of  non-resistance,  not  ac 
ceptable  to  B,  49. 

Gaston,  Geo.  B.,  267. 

Gaston,  Mrs.  Geo.  B.,  quoted,  concerning  con 
ditions  in  Tabor,  267,  268. 

Gay,  Hamilton,  letter  from  Perkins  and  Brown, 
59- 

Gay,  William,  murder  of,  181,  215. 

Gaylord,  Daniel  C.,  37,  38,  41. 

Geary,  John  W.,  succeeds  Shannon  as  Gov.  of 
Kansas  (Sept.,  1856),  234;  his  arrival  ushers 
in  a  better  era,  255;  issues  address  and  pro 
clamations,  255;  orders  disbandment  of  pro- 
slavery  militia  and  organization  of  a  new  body, 
255;  equally  severe  on  pro-slavery  murderers 
and  Free  State  marauders,  255;  more  and 
more  favorable  to  Free  State  cause,  255; 
in  Lawrence,  with  U.  S.  troops  under  Cooke, 
256,  257;  averts  pro-slavery  attack  there, 
259;  unjustly  denounced  by  B,  268;  resigns, 
294;  his  administration,  294;  leaves  Kansas  a 
Free  State  man,  294;  254,  263,  264,  277. 

Georgia,  pro-slavery  men  from,  in  Kansas,  137, 
138. 

Gibbons  family,  327. 

Gibs9n,  Col.  John  T.,  438,  440,  452. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  attacked  in  majority  re 
port  of  Mason  Com.,  582;  394,  398,  459,  472, 
474.  Letter  to  B,  134;  from  B,  131. 

Giddings,  Mrs.  Joshua  R.,  394. 

Gihon,  Mr.,  173. 

Gilbert,  Isaac,  442  n. 

Gileadites,  U.  S.  league  of,  organized  in  Spring 
field  (1851),  So;  B's  "  Words  of  Advice  "  for, 
50,  51,  52;  object  of,  51 ;  agreement  and  reso 
lutions  of,  52,  53;  55,  75. 

Gill,  Geo.  B.,  elected  "  Sec'y  of  the  Treasury  " 
at  Chatham  Convention,  333;  and  Jim  Dan- 
iels's  story,  367,  368;  in  Missouri  raid,  368; 
quoted,  363,  364,  379,  382,  389,  680,  682; 
final  parting  from  B ,  390  n . ;  his  defection ,  409 ; 
328,  330,  344,  353,  364,  3?o,  380,  381,  385, 
386,  413,  414,  424,  510.  Letters  front's,  337. 

Gill,  Dr.  H.  C.,  316.   Letter  from  R.  Realf,  330. 

Gilman,  Charles  F.,  quoted,  254. 

Gilpatrick,  Rufus,  elected  judge  of  Squatters' 
Court  as  "  Old  Brown,"  168,  175,  358. 

Gist,  Gov.,  of  So.  Carolina,  567. 

Gladstone,  Thomas  H.,  The  Englishman  in  Kan 
sas,  quoted,  97;  179. 

Glasgow  (Mo.)  Times,  99. 

Gloucester,  J.  N.,  colored,  B  discloses  his  plans 
to,  323. 

Gloucester,  Mrs.  J.  N.,  colored,  323,  412. 

Golding,  R.,  168. 

Goodin,  Joel  K.,  Sec'y  of  Territorial  Exec. 
Com.,  106,  and  of  Free  State  Exec.  Com., 
108. 

Gordon,  William,  247. 

Graham,  Dr.,  208. 

Graham,  Mr.,  quoted  as  to  B's  last  day  in  Kan 
sas,  383. 

Grand  Jury,  Federal,  indicts  Free  State  men 
for  treason  without  hearing  witnesses,  142; 
recommends  abatement  of  Free  State  news 
papers  as  nuisances,  143,  and  demolition  of 
Free  State  Hotel,  143. 

Grant,  Charles,  son  of  John  T.  Grant,  173. 

Grant,  Geo.  W.,  son  of  John  T.  Grant,  and  the 
case  of  Morse,  174,  175;  not  the  mysterious 
messenger,  175;  quoted,  245;  153,  156,  169. 

Grant,  Henry  C.,  son  of  John  T.  Grant,  156,  169. 

Grant,  J.  G.,  son  of  John  T.  Grant,  167,  175. 

Grant,  John  T.,  condemns  Pottawatomie  raid, 
167;  169,  172,  173- 

Grant,  Mrs.  John  T.,  173. 

Grant,  Mary  E.,  daughter  of  John  T.  Grant,  al 
leged  assault  of  W.  Sherman  on,  172, 173, 175, 
177;  quoted,  230. 

Grasshopper  Falls  Convention,  296. 


Gray,  Dr.,  535- 

Greeley,  Horace,  quoted  as  to  G.  Smith,  71,  72; 
quoted,  95, 104,  126, 147, 476, 480 ;  challenged 
by  H.  C.  Pate,  613  n.  19;  49,  138,  139,  188, 
230,  287,  472,  510.  Letter  to  S.  Colfax,  476. 

Green,  Lieut.  Israel,  commands  marines  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  440,  450;  leads  attack  on  en 
gine  house,  452-454;  his  Capture  of  John 
Brown,  quoted,  453;  sketch  of,  642  n.  61; 
462  n.,  470. 

Green,  Shields,  colored,  decides  to  go  with  B, 
despite  advice  of  F.  Douglass,  412,  413;  in 
Harper's  Ferry  party,  414,  418,  421,  431,  449; 
made  prisoner  in  engine  house,  454;  convicted 
and  sentenced,  569,  570;  executed,  570; 
sketch  of,  687;  470,  471,  486,  571,  572. 

Green,  Thomas  C.,  mayor  of  Charlestown,  as 
signed  as  counsel  for  B,  483,  484;  denounced 
by  B  and  withdraws,  492;  sketch  of,  645  n.49; 
490,  491,  507,  520. 

Green,  William,  employed  as  counsel  for  B  be 
fore  the  Court  of  Appeals,  646  n.  75. 

Greenlaw,  Wm.  P.,  591  n.  6. 

Gregg,  E.  H.,  letter  to  J.  H.  Holmes,  389. 

Grinnell,  Josiah  B.,  his  warm  welcome  of  B, 
386,  387;  390. 

Griswold,  Hiram,  sent  by  D.  R.  Tilden  to  assist 
in  B's  defence,  493,  495;  argues  for  defence, 
496;  lays  evidence  of  B's  insanity  before 
Gov.  Wise,  507,  508. 

Grover,  Capt.  Joel,  at  "  Fort  M  Titus,  231. 

Grover,  Mr.,  380. 

Grow,  Galusha  A.,  his  bill  for  admission  of  Kan 
sas  under  Topeka  Constitution  passed  by 
House  of  Representatives,  226. 

Gue,  Benjamin  F.,  411. 

Gue,  David  J.,  author  of  Floyd  letter,  411;  hia 
motive  in  writing  it,  411,  412. 

Hadley,  Daniel  B.,  594  n.  12. 

Hadsall,  C.  C.,  and  the  sale  of  Eli  Snyder'a 
claim  at  Moneka,  356,  357. 

Hagerstown  (Md.),  402,  403. 

Haine,  Deputy  Sheriff,  215. 

Hairgrove,  Asa,  348,  354,  375- 

Hale,  John  P.,  U.  S.  Senator  from  New  Hamp 
shire,  339. 

Hall,  Amos,  murdered  by  Charles  A.  Hamilton 
and  his  men,  348,  375. 

Hall,  Austin,  348,  375- 

Haller,  William,  kills  J.  T.  Lyle,  295. 

Hallock,  Rev.  Jeremiah,  12. 

Hallock,  Rev.  Moses,  17. 

Hallock,  William  H.,  quoted,  17. 

Hamburg,  visited  by  B,  61. 

Hamilton,  Charles  A.,  Border  Ruffian,  bloody 
deed  of,  186,  187,  348,  349,  375;  motive  for 
his  crime,  349;  authorities  for  the  story  of, 
629  n.  3. 

Hammond,  Col.  C.  G.,  390. 

Hamtramck  Guards,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  444, 
464,  465. 

Hannibal  (Mo.)  Messenger,  99. 

Hanway,  James,  The  Settlement  of  Lane  and 
Vicinity,  quoted,  136;  in  Kansas  Monthly, 
153;  condemns  Pottawatomie  murders,  167; 
but  later  approves,  167,  170;  175,358.  Letter 
to  R.  J.  Hinton,  358;  from  S.  Walker,  228,  229. 

Harding.  Charles  B.,  State's  attorney,  character 
of,  485,  645  n.  53;  sums  up  for  prosecution, 
495;  483,  489,  494- 

Harper,  Gen.  Kenton,  465. 

Harper's  Ferry,  B's  plan  to  seize  arsenal  dis 
closed  to  Col.  Woodruff  in  1854  or  1855,  541 
but  may  have  been  conceived  much  earlier, 
55 ;  details  of  plan  discussed,  3 13 ;  B  arrives  at, 
July  3,  1859,  403;  details  of  attack  on,  426 
seqq.;  B  moves  his  force  from  Kennedy  Farm 
to,  426,  427;  place  ill-chosen  for  an  attack  on 
slavery,  427,  428;  the  arsenal,  428,  429.  43o; 


INDEX 


725 


description  of  the  town,  428, 429;  unfavorable 
strategic  position,  429;  approaches  to,  429; 
unsuspecting  of  invasion,  430;  rush  of  militia 
to,  444;  conduct  of  citizens  of,  447,  448. 

Harper's  Ferry  Raid,  assumes  national  propor 
tions  only  because  of  B's  survival,  471,  472; 
Southern  opinion  concerning,  474-476;  its 
real  significance,  476. 

Harris,  James,  his  story  of  the  murder  of  W. 
Sherman,  162-164. 

Harris,  James  H.,  colored,  331,  4*3- 

"  Harrisburg,"  letter  to  Gov.  Wise  so  signed, 
518. 

Harrison,  Jeremiah,  121. 

Harrison,  William  H.,  alias  of  R.  J.  Hinton  and 
of  A.  Hazlett,  572. 

Harrisonviile  (Mo.)  Democrat,  quoted,  370. 

Hartford  (Conn.),  278. 

Hartford  Evening  Press  and  the  raid,  472. 

Harvey,  James  A.,  commands  abortive  expedi 
tion  against  Leavenworth,  254;  captures  pro- 
slavery  force  at  Hickory  Point,  256;  many  of 
his  men  taken  prisoners  by  Capt.  Wood,  256; 
233,  252,  253. 

Hawes,  Alexander  G.,  239,  245,  247. 

Hawkins,  Nelson,  nom  de  guerre  adopted  by  B, 
in  1857,  290,  325  and  n.,  339. 

Hayden,  Lewis,  and  F.  J.  Merriam,  421. 

Haymaker,  Mr.,  27. 

Haynau,  Mr.   See  Haine. 

Hayward,  Shephard,  colored,  shot  to  death  by 
B's  raiders,  433,  434;  44L  461,  479- 

Hazlett,  Albert,  in  Harper's  Ferry  party,  414, 
419,  420,  430,  439;  his  escape,  445,  446;  cap 
tured  in  Penn.,  446;  ignored  by  B  and  the 
other  prisoners  in  the  hope  of  saving  his  life, 
554,  572;  attempts  to  save  him  after  B's  exe 
cution,  573  seqq.;  executed,  580;  sketch  of, 
682;  368,  369,  471,  554,  558  n. 

Heiskell,  Gen.,  189,  257. 

Helper,  Hinton  Rowan,  his  Impending  Crisis, 
568,  583,  584,  585,  587. 

"  Henry,"  letter  to  B,  518. 

Herald  of  Freedom,  91,  143,  231,  354,  371,  632 
n.  71. 

Hicklan  (or  Hicklin),  Harvey  G.,  Jim  Daniels 's 
temporary  master,  368;  his  account  of  B's 
Missouri  raid,  368. 

Hickory  Point,  pro-slavery  force  at,  threatened 
by  Lane  and  captured  by  Harvey,  256. 

Hicks,  Gov.,  of  Maryland,  524. 

Higgins,  Patrick,  first  man  wounded  at  Har 
per's  Ferry,  432  and  n. 

Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth,  his  Cheerful 
Yesterdays  quoted,  170,  326,  397,  579,  580, 
595  n.  21 ;  on  Lane's  eloquence,  226;  angry  at 
delay  in  autumn  of  1857,  303;  his  characteri 
zation  of  B,  326;  his  memorandum  on  post 
ponement  of  Virginia  plan,  340;  disinclined  to 
aid  B  in  May,  1859,  397 ;  his  feeling  on  hearing 
of  Harper's  Ferry  raid,  397;  one  of  the  first 
to  move  for  rescue  of  B,  511;  his  temperament 
and  principles,  511 ;  appeals  to  Mrs.  Brown  to 
induce  B  to  consent  to  rescue,  512,  513;  Mr. 
Spooner's  plan  to  kidnap  Gov.  Wise,  515; 
after  the  failure  at  Harper's  Ferry,  529;  re 
proaches  Dr.  Howe,  532;  his  part  in  attempts 
to  save  Stevens  and  Hazlett,  573  seqq.;  his 
aliases,  573;  324,  421,  47L  514.  515,  517.  57O. 
Letters  to  B,  338,  397,  Dr.  Howe,  533,  F.  B. 
Sanborn,  529;  from  B,  320,  513,  543,  Dr. 
Howe,  532,  F.  B.  Sanborn,  303,  325,  326, 339, 
396,  530. 

Higginson,  Mrs.  T.  W.,  573,  577,  581. 

Hill,  Mr.,  214,  292. 

Hinckley,  Alexis,  413. 

Hinsdale,  Abel,  29. 

Hinton,  R.  J.,  his  John  Brown  and  his  Men, 
quoted,  17, 484, 625  n.  97;  his  journal,  quoted, 
258;  and  the  attempt  to  save  Stevens  and 


Hazlett,  572  seqq.;  175,  308,  336,  352,  413, 
414,  424,  512,  516,  570. 

Hoadley,  George,  letter  to  S.  P.  Chase,  587. 

Hoar,  E.  Rockwood,  396,  534. 

Hobart,  Mrs.  Danley,  quoted,  18. 

Hodges,  Willis  H.,  cooperates  with  B  in  assist 
ing  negroes  at  No.  Elba,  73.  Letter  from  B,  72. 

Holbrook,  James  J.,  3d  Lieut,  of  Liberty 
Guards,  121. 

Holland,  F.  M.,  Frederick  Douglass:  the  Colored 
Orator,  quoted,  85. 

Holman,  Mrs.  Mary  L.,  591  n.  6. 

Holmes,  James  H.,  234,  236,  238,  239,  240,  243, 
245,  247,  261,  290,  293.  Letter  to  B,  300. 

Holmes,  Mrs.,  172. 

Holt,  J.  H.,  captures  Copeland,  445. 

Hopkins,  Mr.,  murder  of,  215. 

Hoppe,  Wm.,  murder  of,  181,  215,  352. 

Hopper  family,  327. 

House  of  Representatives  (U.  S.),  votes  to  ad 
mit  neither  Whitfield  nor  Reeder  as  delegate, 
226;  passes  Grow  bill  for  admission  of  Kansas, 
under  Tppeka  Const.,  226;  and  rejects 
Toombs  bill,  227;  attaches  Free  State  rider  to 
Army  Appropriation  bill,  which  fails  of  pas 
sage,  227;  Speakership  contest  in  1859-60, 
583,  58s. 

Howard  Committee  of  House  of  Representa 
tives,  appointed  in  March,  1856,  to  investi 
gate  Kansas  situation,  94  and  n.,  100,  116, 
117,  141,  143,  183;  decision  of,  on  election  of 
Territorial  delegate,  106,  107  and  n.;  reports 
of,  107,  109,  120,  226;  their  value,  and  effect 
on  public  opinion,  107. 

Howard,  William  A.,  chairman  of  Howard  Com 
mittee,  94  n.;  and  John  Sherman,  report  of, 
quoted,  120. 

Howe,  Dr.  Samuel  G.,  accused  of  duplicity  and 
prevarication  by  Adm.  Chadwick,  341;  and 
the  proposed  attack  on  Charlestown,  517; 
goes  to  Canada  after  the  raid,  530;  his  self- 
exculpatory  card,  531 ;  his  attitude  discussed, 
531-533;  attacked  by  Higginson,  532;  before 
the  Mason  Com.,  532;  271,  324,  325,  326,  340, 
397,399,  484,  582.  Letters  to  T.  W.  Higgin 
son,  532,  Henry  Wilson,  341 ;  from  H.  Forbes, 
313,  T.  W.  Higginson,  533,  Henry  Wilson, 
339- 

Hoyt,  David  S.,  murder  of,  181,  215,  231. 

Hoyt,  George  H.,  retained  by  Le  Barnes  to  de 
fend  B,  484;  his  instructions,  484;  his  youth 
arouses  A.  Hunter's  suspicions,  484,485;  his 
first  appearance  in  court,  490;  allowed  to  act 
as  counsel,  490;  asks  for  delay,  492;  becomes 
sole  counsel,  493;  reinforced  by  Chilton  and 
Griswold,  493;  proceeds  with  defence,  494, 
495;  submits  affidavits  concerning  B's  insan 
ity  to  Gov.  Wise,  508;  tells  B  of  plan  to  rescue 
him,  512;  forced  to  leave  Charlestown,  520; 
quoted,  concerning  Stevens,  680;  517,  540, 
544.  Letters  to  J.  W.  Le  Barnes,  479  n.,  495, 
512. 

Hudson  (Ohio),  9. 

Huffmaster,  Mrs.,  an  inquisitive  neighbor  of 
Kennedy  Farm,  417,  418,  419. 

Hughes,  Mrs.  Sarah  F.,  her  John  Murray 
Forbes  quoted,  398,  399. 

Hugo,  Victor,  his  John  Brown  quoted,  569,  588. 

"  Humanitarians,  The,"  H.  Forbes's  name  for 
B's  friends  in  Mass.,  299. 

Humphrey,  Rev.  Heman,  15. 

Humphrey,  Rev.  Luther,  15.   Letter  from  B,  543. 

Hunnewell,  James,  302. 

Hunt,  Washington,  563. 

Hunter,  Andrew,  special  prosecutor  to  try  B., 
442;  suspicious  of  Hoyt's  youth,  484,  485;  his 
character  and  ability,  485;  his  conduct  of  the 
prosecution,  485;  opening  address  to  jury, 
490;  and  his  son's  story  of  the  shooting  of 
Wm.  Thompson,  491;  accuses  B  of  feigning 


726 


INDEX 


illness  to  gain  time,  495;  his  John  Brown's 
Raid  quoted,  495,  522,  525,  527;  his  closing 
argument,  496;  and  the  rescue  scares,  521, 
522;  makes  B's  will,  5So;  sketch  of,  645  n.  55; 
456,  491,  494,  499,  524.  525,  526,  527,  548  and 
n.,  570,  571,  588.  Letters  to  Gov.  Wise,  477; 
from  B,  548,  Gov.  Letcher,  578,  Dr.  Peticolas, 
504  n.,  Gov.  Wise,  478,  504,  52 1.  Father  of 

Hunter,  Harry,  describes  killing  of  Wm.  Thomp 
son  by  himself  and  Chambers,  442,  491. 

Hurd,  H.  B.,  Sec'y  of  National  Kansas  Com., 
denies  B's  authority  to  sign  as  agent,  360; 
275,  276.  Letters  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  275,  E.  B. 
Whitman,  360. 

Hutchings,  John,  175. 

Hutchinson,  William,  307,  373,  374-  Letter  to 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  373. 

Hyatt,  Thaddeus,  Journal  of  Investigations  in 
Kansas,  89  n.;  Pres.  of  National  Kansas 
Com.,  227;  arrested  and  released,  582,  583; 
235,  287,  298. 

Imboden,  Gen.  J.  D.,  465. 

Independence  (Mo.)  Messenger,  99. 

Indians,  near  Hudson,  Ohio,  9,  13;  in  Osawa- 
tomie  neighborhood,  89,  90. 

Ingersoll  (Canada),  328. 

Insanity,  suggested  plea  of,  in  B's  family,  489, 
490;  the  whole  question  discussed,  508-510. 

Iowa,  Historical  Dept.  of,  384. 

lowans,  in  B's  force  in  Kansas,  236. 

Irrepressible  Conflict,  The,  imminence  of,  indi 
cated  by  Mr.  Spooner's  plan  to  kidnap  Gov. 
Wise,  514;  527,  586. 

Irving,  Washington,  his  Life  of  Washington, 
325- 

Isaaks,  A.  J.,  U.  S.  Dist.Att'y  for  Kansas,  up 
holds  legality  of  Shawnee  Legislature,  100. 

Iverson,  Lieut.,  196. 

Iverson,  Alfred,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Georgia, 
584-  587,  596  n.  4. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  President  of  the  U.  S.,  14. 

Jackson,  Mrs   B.  F.,  quoted,  155;  173- 

Jackson,  Congrave,  and  Maughas,  G.  B.  M., 
their  report  of  the  fight  at  Osawatomie,  247. 

Jackson,  Francis,  420. 

Jackson,  J.  P.,  525. 

Jackson,  M.  V.  B.,  151,  178. 

Jackson,  Patrick  T.,  271,  274. 

Jackson,  Prof.  T.  J.  ("  Stonewall  "),  523,  555, 
556. 

Jacobs,  Judge,  befriends  Jason  Brown,  194, 
195- 

Jamison,  "  Quartermaster  General,"  301. 

"  Jayhawkers,"  350,  513. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  President  of  the  U.  S.;  his 
Notes  on  the  State  of  Virginia  quoted,  428; 
559. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  B's  colored  driver,  72. 

Jefferson  City  Inquirer,  99,  189. 

Jefferson  Guards,  turn  out  at  Charlestown,  436  ; 
well  led,  437;  438,  465. 

Jenkins,  Gaius,  indicted  for  treason,  142,  and 
arrested,  145. 

Jennison,  Charles,  Free  State  leader  of  an 
armed  band,  and  a  raider  187,  366;  in  Mis 
souri  raid,  368;  513. 

Jerry  Rescue  Committee,  536. 

John  Brown  Song,  The,  506,  585. 

Johnson,  Oliver,  575. 

Johnston,  Lt.-Col.  Joseph  E.,  at  Lawrence,  in 
command  of  U.  S.  troops,  257,  259,  260. 

Jones,  Rev.  Elijah  B.,  letter  from  John  Sher 
man,  506  n. 

Jones,  H.  L.,  describes  feeling  of  Free  State  men 
as  to  Pottawatomie  murders,  167,  168. 

Jones,  John,  shooting  of,  141,  142,  180. 

Jones,  John,  colored,  390. 

Jones,  Lieut.  J.  P.,  633  n.  85. 


Jones,  John  T.  ("Ottawa"),  his  house  de 
stroyed,  253  and  n.;  154,  165,  195,  196,  207, 
277. 

Jones,  Mrs.  John  T.,  253. 
ones,  Jonas,  276,  277,  293,  299,  388. 
ones,  Samuel  J.,  Sheriff,  and  the  rescue  of 
Branson,  113,  114;  appeals  to  Gov.  Shannon, 
114;  blamed  in  report  of  Howard  Com.,  120; 
his  alleged  language,  120;  correspondence 
with  Robinson  and  Lane,  129;  declares 
treaty  of  Lawrence  violated  by  Free  State 
men,  130;  again  in  Lawrence,  139;  arrests 
S.  N.  Wood,  140;  resisted,  brings  U.  S.  troops 
to  Lawrence,  140;  wholesale  arrests  by,  140; 
wounded  by  J.  N.  Filer,  140;  his  death  an 
nounced  by  pro-slavery  papers,  140;  shooting 
of,  unfortunate  for  people  of  Lawrence,  140, 
141 ;  at  burning  of  Free  State  Hotel,  146;  124, 
145,  179,  180,  185,  190. 
Joyce,  Burr,  his  John  Brown's  Raids,  quoted, 

368,  369. 

Jurisdiction,  question  of,  as  between  State  and 
Federal  Courts  in  matter  of  the  raid,  477, 478. 

Kagi,  John  Henry,  approves  B's  Harper's  Ferry 
plan  when  first  broached,  313;  secretary  of 
Chatham  Convention,  331;  elected  "Secre 
tary  of  War  "  at  Chatham  Convention,  333; 
quoted,  364,  365;  in  Missouri  raid,  368;  at 
tempt  to  arrest,  388;  stationed  at  Chambers- 
burg,  Penn.,  406,  407;  "a  melancholy 
brigand  "  according  to  A.  Ward,  392;  urges 
B  to  leave  Harper's  Ferry,  438;  his  steadfast 
conduct  and  death,  444,  445;  sketch  of,  679; 
254,  308  and  n.,  315,  330,  337,  343,  344,  353, 
357,  358,  359,  36o,  362,  363,  366,  374,  375, 
379,  386,  387,  390,  391,  393,  394,  395,  397, 
401,  402,  412,  417,  419,  420,  427,  429,  431, 
510.  Letters  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  422,  N.  Y. 
Tribune,  362,  363,  his  sister,  358;  from  B, 
397,  402,  406,  408,  John  Brown,  Jr.,  413. 

Kaiser,  Charles,  murdered,  250;  199,  200,  246. 

Kansas,  evil  days  in,  54;  objects  of  coloniza 
tion  in,  80;  its  natural  characteristics,  80; 
the  slavery  issue  in,  80;  conditions  in,  as  seen 
by  John  Brown,  Jr. ,83;  hardships  of  settlers 
in,  during  winter  of  1855-1856,  89  and  n.; 
rival  parties  in,  94;  first  election  in,  decided 
by  fraudulent  votes  of  Missourians,  94;  H. 
Greeley  concerning  prospects  in,  95;  New 
Englanders  sent  to,  by  Emigrant  Aid  Socie 
ties,  95;  second  election  in,  98  seqq.;  first 
Territorial  legislature,  elected  in  1855,  solidly 
pro-slavery,  99;  effect  of  that  election  on 
sentiment  at  the  North  and  in  Missouri,  99, 
100;  meeting  of  first  legislature  at  Pawnee, 
and  later  at  Shawnee,  100;  its  voters  in  favor 
of  excluding  all  negroes,  105;  two  elections 
for  delegate  to  Congress,  Oct.  1855,  106;  two 
hostile  governments  in,  107;  Constitution 
framed  by  Topeka  Convention  ratified  by 
people,  107;  claimed  to  be  an  organized  free 
state,  107;  invaded  by  Missourians  posing  as 
Kansas  militia,  115,  116;  Free  State  Legisla 
ture  memorializes  Congress  for  admission 
under  Topeka  Const.,  133;  pro-slavery  men 
from  other  states  in,  137,  138;  colonists  from 
New  England  in,  138;  fears  of  Free  State 
sympathizers  of  rush  of  settlers  from  South 
ern  States,  139;  Marshal  Donaldson's  pro 
clamation  to  law-abiding  citizens,  143;  rush 
of  colonists  to,  after  Lawrence  outrages,  146, 
147;  nation's  attention  centred  on,  as  result 
of  Lawrence  raid,  147;  Pottawatomie  murders 
the  most  prolific  subject  of  discussion  in  its 
history,  148;  conditions  in  1856  as  bearing 
on  resort  to  extra-legal  methods,  I7i^seqq.; 
seething  with  lawlessness,  211;  in  Fremont- 
Buchanan  campaign,  226;  and  the  Howard 
Com.  report,  226;  discussions  on,  in  Congress, 


INDEX 


727 


226;  Grow  bill,  for  admission  under  Topeka 
Const.,  passed  by  House  of  Representatives, 
226;  Tpombs  bill,  for  taking  census  in,  etc., 
227;  minor  warfare  in  (Aug.  1856),  234  seqq.; 
situation  intensified  by  B's  defeat,  and  burn 
ing  of  Osawatpmie,  250  seqq.;  Gov.  Geary's 
arrival  ushers  in  a  better  era,  255;  last  organ 
ized  Missourian  invasion  of,  257  seqq.;  peace 
prevails  in  Nov.  1856,  260;  destruction  of  life 
and  property  between  Nov.  1855.  and  Dec. 
1856,  264;  effect  of  climate  and  soil  on  politi 
cal  views  of  settlers,  265;  no  one  man  decided 
its  fate,  265,  266;  Mass.  Legislature  asked  to 
appropriate  money  for  Free  State  cause  in, 
277;  fate  of,  as  concerned  in  B's  plans,  284; 
Gov.  Walker's  administration,  294,  295; 
1857  a  year  of  quiet  and  progress,  295;  Free 
State  and  pro-slavery  conventions  in  that 
year,  295,  296;  Free  State  victory  in  election 
of  Oct.  1857,  306;  peace-party  in  ascendant  in 
autumn  of  1857,  306,  307;  success  at  polls 
more  effective  than  "  Beecher's  Bibles,"  306, 
307;  policy  of  Free  State  leaders,  307;  causes 
of  freedom  and  prosperity  of,  307;  in  June, 
1858,  346  seqq.;  Lecompton  Const.  —  with 
slavery  —  adopted  at  fraudulent  election, 
346;  rejected  at  second  election,  346;  state 
officers  chosen,  346;  bribe  offered  to,  by  Con 
gress,  in  English  bill,  347;  Lecompton  Const, 
finally  rejected,  347;  renewal  of  lawlessness  in 
S.  E.  counties,  348;  B's  description  of  condi 
tions  in  those  counties  in  July  and  Aug.  1858, 
354;  Legislature  of,  and  B's  Missouri  raid, 
377;  B's  presence  in  1858  a  cause  of  excite 
ment  and  strife,  378;  peace  restored  when  he 
had  left  the  Territory,  379;  legislative  act  of 
amnesty  for  certain  crimes,  379;  enjoys  peace 
and  quiet  thereafter  until  the  Civil  War,  379. 
And  see  Free  State,  Lawrence,  Lecompton 
Constitution,  Pottawatomie  Creek,  Pro-slav 
ery,  Shawnee  Legislature,  Topeka  Constitu 
tional  Convention. 

Kansas-Nebraska  Act  (1854),  75,  79,  80,  587. 

Kansas  Free  State,  122,  143. 

Kansas  Historical  Society,  collections  of,  174. 

"  Kansas  Legion,"  112,  113. 

Kansas  militia,  Atchison's  army  poses  as,  250; 
organization  of,  ordered  by  Pres.  Pierce,  251; 
disbanded  by  order  of  Gov.  Geary,  255;  new 
organization  of,  to  be  mustered  into  service  of 
U.S.,  255- 

Kansas  Pioneer,  accessory  before  the  fact  to 
murder  of  Reese  P.  Brown,  129. 

"  Kansas  Ruffians,"  compared  with  Border 
Ruffians,  264. 

Kansas  Weekly  Herald,  quoted  concerning  pro- 
slavery  triumph  in  1854,  95,  157,  169,  190. 

Kapp,  Friedrich,  575- 

Kellogg,  George,  agent  of  New  England  Woolen 
Co.,  30.  Letter  from  B,  31. 

Kelly,  J.  W.  B.,  thrashed  for  holding  abolition 
views,  no. 

Kemper,  Gen.  James  L.,  quoted,  566. 

Kennedy,  Dr.,  B  rents  farm  of,  near  Harper's 
Ferry,  403. 

Kennedy,  Mary  V.,  married  to  John  E.  Cook, 
408,  681. 

Kennedy  Farm,  rented  by  B,  description  of, 
404;  B's  force  of  21  men-at-arms  at,  in  Aug. 
1859,  414,  415;  daily  life  at,  described  by 
Mrs.  Annie  Brown  Adams,  416-420;  all  B's 
correspondence  left  there,  467. 

Kent  (Ohio),  27. 

Kent,  Marvin,  quoted  as  to  B's  character,  28; 

27,  58. 

Kent,  Zenas,  B's  partner  at  Franklin  Mills,  27, 

28.  Letter  from,  26. 

Kibbey,  Lucius,  his  killing  of  Davis  not  a  po- 

tlitical  crime,  109. 
Kickapoo  Rangers,  129,  144,  223,  260. 


Kiene,  Llewellyn  L.,  describes  the  "  Battle  of 

the  Spurs,"  381,  382. 

Kil bourne,  Mr.,  196. 

King,  Charles,  230. 

King,  Rev.  H.  D.,  recalls  B's  table-talk,  298. 
299;  and  B's  request  for  a  thanksgiving  ser 
vice  at  Tabor,  384,  385. 

King  Brothers,  arms  stored  in  their  ware-rooms, 
343- 

Kinnaird,  Thomas  M.,  333. 

Kirkwood,  Samuel  J.,  Gov.  of  Iowa,  quoted, 
.567,.  568. 

Kitzmiller,  A.  M.,  temporarily  in  charge  of 
arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry,  435,  439. 

Ladd,  Benj.  W.,  letter  from  Perkins  and  Brown, 

60. 
Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  pistol  presented  to  Geo. 

Washington  by,  431. 

Lane,  James  H.,  chairman  of  a  convention  in 
Lawrence,  103;  joins  Free  Soilers,  103;  chair 
man  of  Topeka  Const.  Conv.,  105;  at  Big 
Springs  Conv.,  106;  early  attitude  on  negro 
question,  106;  chairman  of  Free  State  Exec. 
Com.,  108;  rival  of  C.  Robinson,  108;  refused 
leave  to  act  as  counsel  for  McCrea,  109;  ad 
dresses  meeting  at  Lawrence  after  treaty  of 
peace,  123;  addresses  meeting  of  pro-slavery 
captains  at  Franklin,  124;  authorized  by 
Shannon  to  preserve  peace  at  Lawrence,  125; 
elected  provisionally  U.  S.  Senator  by  Free 
State  Legislature,  132;  indicted  for  treason, 
142;  escapes  arrest,  143;  said  to  have  inspired 
B's  Pottawatomie  expedition,  183,  184;  his 
Free  State  "  caravan,"  223;  at  Nebraska  City 
with  his  caravan,  22 5;  assumes  alias  of  Cook, 
225;  speech  at  Chicago,  225,  226;  his  elo 
quence  described  by  T.  W.  Higginson,  226; 
leaves  Nebraska  City  for  Lawrence  with  B 
and  S.  Walker,  228;  reaches  Lawrence  alone, 
228;  with  S.  Walker  makes  demonstration 
against  Lecompton  and  effects  release  of 
prisoners,  252;  returns  to  Lawrence,  252;  mes 
sage  from,  recalls  expedition  against  Leaven- 
worth,  254;  leaves  for  Nebraska  on  Geary's 
arrival,  256;  projected  siege  of  pro-slavery 
men  at  Hickory  Point  abandoned,  256;  again 
in  Kansas,  291;  presides  over  Topeka  Con 
ventions,  June  and  July,  1857,  295, 296;  desires 
Bs  presence  in  Kansas,  300;  appoints  B 
"brigadier-general,"  301;  and  B's  Missouri 
raid,  370,  371;  121,  129,  140,  229,  231,  233, 
235  n.,  239,  255,262,  265,  266,296,297,302, 
306,  346,  514.  Letters  to  B,  300,  301,  304; 
from  B,  300,  301. 

Lane,  Samuel  A.,  testifies  in   1898  as  to  B'g 
movements  en  route  to  Kansas  in   1855,  85; 
his  Fifty  Years  and  over  of  Akron  and  Summit 
County,  593  n.  32;  597  n.  14. 
Larue,  John,  his  slaves  liberated  by  B  in  Mis 
souri  raid,  369. 
Larue,  John  B.,  369. 

Laughlin,  Patrick,  shoots  S.  Collins,  112,  113. 
Law-and-Order  Party,  formed  by  pro-slavery 
men,  108;  address  concerning  Pottawatomie 
murders,  192;  meeting  of  protest,  192;  ap 
points  vigilance  committee,  192;  212. 
Lawrence  (Kansas),  Free  State  convention  at, 
91;  radical  meeting  at,  Aug.  1855,  91;  con 
ventions  of  Free  Soilers  at,  June  to  Aug.,  1855, 
102,  103;  the  rescue  of  Branson  by  citizens  of, 
and  its  consequences,  113  seqq.;  Committee, 
of  Safety  formed,  113,  114;  threatened  by 
pro-slavery  forces,  114;  number  of  troops  as 
sembled  against,  116;  appeals  to  all  Free 
State  men  to  come  to  her  rescue,  118;  opera 
tions  for  relief  of,  118-120;  end  of  siege  of, 
120;  open-air  meetings,  123;  terms  of  treaty, 
123;  treaty  of,  accepted  by  both  parties,  124; 
protection  of,  intrusted  to  Lane  and  Robin* 


728 


INDEX 


son  by  stratagem,  125;  treaty  of,  an  ill-fated 
pact,  126;  invasion  of,  characterized  in  report 
of  Howard  Com.,  120;  citizens  of,  condemn 
shooting  of  Jones,  to  no  effect,  140,  141;  pro- 
slavery  appeals  for  her  destruction,  141; 
movement  of  force  under  Donaldson  against, 
144,  145;  committee  of  citizens  offer  submis 
sion,  and  surrender  their  arms,  145;  helpless 
ness  of  her  citizens,  146;  destruction  of  news 
paper  offices  and  Free  State  Hotel,  146;  sack, 
of,  180,  described  by  S.  C.  Pomeroy,  182; 
sources  for  story  of  sack  of,  607  n.  100; 
threatened  by  pro-slavery  force,  257  seqq.; 
R.  J.  Hinton  concerning  conditions  at,  258; 
fortifications  of,  258;  defence  of,  in  hands  of 
Maj.  Abbott  and  Capt.  Cracklin,  258;  attack 
on,  averted  by  Gov.  Geary  and  Lt.-Col. 
Cooke,  259. 

Lawrence,  Amos  A.,  first  impressions  of  B,  273; 
calls  him  the  "  Miles  Standish  of  Kansas," 
273;  his  admiration  for  B  cools,  400;  his 
diary  quoted,  400;  279,  281,  291.  Letter  to  B, 
280;  from  B,  279. 

Lawrence,  Wm.  R.,  280. 

Lawrence  Republican,  364,  365,  370,  480. 

Lawrence  "  Stubbs,"  J.  B.  Abbott's  company, 
reinforces  B  at  Black  Jack,  208. 

Le  Barnes,  J.  W.,  retains  G.  H.  Hoyt  to  defend 
B,  484;  among  the  first  to  plan  rescue  of  B, 
511;  and  the  Spooner  plan  to  kidnap  Wise, 
515  seqq . ;  and  the  proposed  attack  on  Charles- 

;  town,  516,  517;  and  the  attempt  to  save 
Stevens  and  Hazlett,  574;  512,  515,  528,  570. 
Letter  to  T.  W.  Higginson,  515;  from  G.  H. 
Hoyt,  479  n.,  495,  512. 

Leary,  Lewis  Sheridan,  in  B's  Harper's  Ferry 
party,  415,  421,  431;  his  death,  445;  sketch 
of,  685. 

Leather  Manufacturers'  Bank  of  New  York,  37. 

Leavenworth,  vote  of,  not  counted  in  vote  rati 
fying  Topeka  Const.,  107,  108;  public  meet 
ing  at,  applauds  outrage  on  W.  Phillips,  no; 
disturbances  at,  in  Jan.  1856,  128,  129;  pro- 
slavery  mayor  prohibits  election  under  To 
peka  Const.,  128;  election  adjourned  to 
Easton,  128;  murder  of  Reese  P.  Brown,  129; 
news  of  Pottawatomie  murders  at,  192;  Free 
State  expedition  against,  under  Harvey,  254, 
recalled  by  Lane,  254. 

Leavenworth  Herald,  no,  116,  129,  230,  370. 

Leavenworth  Times,  "  Battle  of  the  Spurs  " 
described  in,  382,  383. 

Leavitt,  Rev.  Joshua,  introduces  Hugh  Forbes 
to  B,  285;  318. 

Lecompte,  S.  D.,  Chief  Justice  of  Kansas  Ter 
ritory,  upholds  legality  of  Shawnee  Legisla 
ture,  100;  and  the  trial  of  McCrea  for  the 
murder  of  Clark,  109;  his  pro-slavery  charge 
to  Grand  Jury  after  Pottawatomie,  142;  his 
novel  definition  of  constructive  treason,  142. 

Lecompton  Constitution,  slavery  question,  how 
affected  by,  346;  two  elections  on  adoption  of, 
346;  election  of  officers  under,  346;  in  Con 
gress,  347;  rejected  at  election  of  Aug.  2, 
1858,  347;  296,  306,  351. 

Lecompton  Constitutional  Convention,  in  pro- 
slavery  hands,  296;  306,  307. 

Lecompton  Union,  and  the  Pottawatomie  mur 
ders,  190. 

Lee,  Col.  Robert  E.,  sent  to  Harper's  Ferry  to 
command  all  the  forces  there,  450;  prepares 
to  attack  at  daylight,  450;  his  orders  as  de 
tailed  by  Stuart,  450,  451;  execution  of  his 
plan,  451  seqq.;  at  the  interview  following 
B's  capture,  456  seqq.,  463,  464;  in  Harper's 
Ferry  for  execution  of  B,  523;  470,  555. 

Leeman,  William  H.,  indiscreet  letter  to  his 
mother,  408;  circumstances  of  his  death,  440; 
sketch  of,  685;  308,  311,  329,  330,  337,  343, 
344,  414,  419,  437. 


Legate,  James  F.,  126*  175. 

Lenhart,  Charles,  wrongfully  suspected  of 
shooting  Sheriff  Jones,  140;  attempts  to  ef 
fect  escape  of  Cook  and  Coppoc,  571,  572; 
sketch  of,  655  n.  46;  142,  215,  216,  414. 

Leonard,  O.  E.,  232. 

Letcher,  John,  Gov.  of  Virginia,  572;  warned  of 
attempt  to  rescue  Stevens  and  Hazlett,  578. 
Letter  to  A.  Hunter,  578. 

Lewis,  A.  H.,  despatch  to  Faulkner  and  Bolts, 
596. 

Lexington  (Mo.)  Express,  117,  189. 

Liberator,  The,  B's  acquaintance  with,  49;  ig 
nores  Pottawatomie  murders,  191;  and  the 
raid,  473;  501,  583,  599  n.  50. 

Liberty  (Mo.),  arms  stolen  from  U.  S.  armory 
there  by  Missourians  invading  Kansas,  117. 

Liberty  Guards,  B's  company  of  Kansas  mili 
tia  so-called,  121;  muster-roll,  121;  their 
length  of  service,  121,  122. 

Liberty  Platform,  96. 

Lieber,  Francis,  letter  to  Dr.  H.  Drisler,  564. 

Limerick,  W.,  quoted,  240,  241.  Letter  to  Gen. 
Shields,  240. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  quoted,  564;  nominated  for 
President,  and  elected,  585. 

Lincoln,  Levi,  ex-Gov.  of  Mass.,  563. 

Little,  J.  H.,  killed  in  attack  on  Fort  Scott,  366 . 

Lodge,  John  E.,  280. 

Loguen,  J.  W.,  colored,  323,  327,  328. 

London,  B's  visit  to,  61,  63. 

London  Times,  475  n.,  568. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  his  diary  quoted,  563. 

Longstreet,  James,  Lieut.-Gen.,  myth  concern 
ing,  224  n. 

Loudpn  Heights,  428,  429. 

Lovejoy,  Elijah  P.,  51,  594  n.  13. 

Lowry,  Grosvenor  P.,  140. 

Lowry,  M.  B.,  visits  B  in  jail,  546. 

Lucas,  Judge,  520. 

"  Limber  Jim,"  519. 

Lusk,  Mrs.  Amos,  B's  mother-in-law  and  house 
keeper,  1 8. 

Lusk,  Dianthe.    See  Brown,  Dianthe  (Lusk). 

Lusk,  Milton,  B's  brother-in-law,  19. 

Luther,  Martin,  510. 

Lyle,  James  T.,  killed  by  Haller,  295. 

Lynch  law,  when  justifiably  resorted  to,  171, 181. 

McClellan,  Geo.  B.,  report  on  the  armies  of 
Europe,  325. 

McClellan,  H.  B.,  Life  and  Campaigns  of  J.  E. 
B.  Stuart  quoted,  450,  451. 

McClure,  Alex.  K.,  421. 

McClure's  Magazine,  594  n.  12. 

McCrea,  Cole,  charged  with  murder  of  Clark, 
109;  treatment  of,  by  Chief  Justice  Le 
compte,  109;  indicted  and  escapes,  109,  no. 

McCrea-Clark  homicide,  of  marked  political 
significance,  109. 

McDaniel,  Sheriff,  349,  364,  365. 

McDow,  W.  C.,  168. 

McFarland,  Rev.  Mr.,  letter  from  B,  544,  545. 

Mcllvaine,  Messrs.,  137. 

Mclntosh,  Lieut.  James,  supports  Sheriff  Jones 
with  U.  S.  troops,  140;  concerning  disorders 
in  Kansas,  214;  197. 

McKim,  J.  Miller,  513,  549,  561,  562. 

Mace,  J.  N.,  shooting  of,  141. 

Manes,  John  B.,  178. 

Manes,  Poindexter,  172. 

Manning,  Rev.  Jacob  M.,  560. 

Mansfield,  James,  558  and  n. 

"  Manual  of  the  Patriotic  Volunteer,"  transla 
tion  by  H.  Forbes,  286,  298. 

Marais  des  Cygnes,  149,  196,  229,  235,  236,  239, 
244,  247,  249. 

Marais  des  Cygnes  Massacre,  186,  187,  354, 
355.  375-  And  see  Hamilton,  Charles  A. 

"  Marais  du  Cygne,  Le,"  by  J.  G.  Whittier,  349- 


INDEX 


729 


Marais  des  Cygnes  River,  198. 

Marcy,  W.  L.,  Sec'y  of  State,  25$. 

"  Marion  Rifles,"  149,  150. 

Martin,  Henry,  alias  of  Montgomery,  573,  576. 

Martin,  Hugh,  369. 

Martinsburg  company,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  443; 
cuts  off  B's  only  avenue  of  escape,  443. 

Maryland  Heights,  428,  429. 

Mason,  Dr.,  jail-physician,  489,  495. 

Mason,  J.  M.,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Virginia,  his 
questions  to  B  in  the  interview  following  his 
capture,  457  seqq.;  quoted,  469;  chairman  of 
investigating  committee  of  U.  S.  Senate,  478; 

|  and  F.  B.  Sanborn,  533;  and  G.  L.  Stearns, 
534;  presents  majority  report  of  his  commit 
tee,  580;  456,  470,  505  n.,  529,  566. 

Mason  Committee,  F.  B.  Sanborn's  testimony 
before,  533;  and  G.  L.  Stearns's,  534.  535; 
its  sessions,  580;  reports  of  majority,  580, 
581-583,  and  minority,  580,  581;  182,  331, 
342,  359,  399,  409. 

Massachusetts  and  the  Anthony  Burns  case, 
384. 

Massachusetts  Arms  Co.,  sells  revolvers  to  G. 
L.  Stearns,  for  B,  289;  341. 

Massachusetts  Kansas  Committee,  votes  to 
give  B  200  rifles  previously  sent  to  Tabor, 
Iowa,  274,  275;  controversy  as  to  arms  and 
money,  341-343;  accused  of  duplicity,  341; 
its  defence,  342 ;  its  affairs  confused  with  those 
of  National  Kansas  Com. ,360,  361;  227,271, 
279,  289,  317,  339,  340,  359. 

Massachusetts  Legislature,  urged  to  appropri 
ate  $100,000  for  Free  State  cause  in  Kansas, 
277;  B  before  Committee  on  Federal  Rela 
tions,  277;  refuses  appropriation,  278. 

Massasoit  House,  Chicago,  color-line  drawn  at, 
329. 

Massasoit  House,  Springfield,  B  a  welcome  vis 
itor  at,  278;  282,  284. 

Maughas,  G.  B.  M.   See  Jackson,  Congrave. 

Maxson,  William,  312,  315,  316,  328. 

May,  Samuel  J.,  85. 

Mayflower  Company,  i,  10. 

Medary,  Gov.  Samuel,  prejudiced  against  Free 
State  leaders  by  Montgomery's  attack  on 
Fort  Scott,  366,  367;  applies  for  U.  S.  troops, 
and  for  arms  for  Kansas  militia,  367;  his  ac 
tion  on  B's  Missouri  raid,  376,  377;  364,  370, 
371,  374,  378,  379,  38i. 

Memminger,  O.  G.,  quoted,  567. 

Memorandum  Book,  No.  2,  B's  (in  Boston  Pub 
lic  Library),  quoted,  53. 

Mendenhall,  Richard,  134. 

Meriam,  Francis  J.,  joins  B  at  Chambersburg, 
and  supplies  him  with  funds,  412,  420,  421; 
his  character  and  antecedents,  421;  at  Har 
per's  Ferry,  421;  left  to  guard  arms  at  Ken 
nedy  Farm,  421,  426;  his  arrival  removes  last 
obstacle  to  making  attack,  423;  his  final  es 
cape,  471;  sketch  of,  685;  415.  446,  468. 

"  Meridezene."   See  Marais  des  Cygnes. 

Messenger,  the,  who  brought  news  to  "  Pot- 
tawatomies'  "  camp  of  threats  against  Free 
State  settlers,  his  identity,  or  actuality,  dis 
puted,  175,  176;  probably  non-existent,  176, 
177. 

Metternich,  Col.  Richard,  575,  579. 

Meulen,  Peter  Wouter  van  der,  maternal  an 
cestor  of  B,  15. 

Mexican  War,  59,  79. 

Middle  West,  difficulties  of  pioneering  in,  In 
early  igth  century,  8,  9. 

Miller,  Col.  C.  D.,  G.  Smith's  son-in-law,  53S- 

Mills,  Benj.,  master-armorer  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
a  prisoner,  439,  455- 

Mills,  Rev.  Gideon,  B's  maternal  great-grand 
father,  15. 

Mills,  J  •  — *  ^M«M»n.  B's  maternal  grandfather, 
IS. 


Mills,  Lucius,  220,  222,  223. 

Mills,  Owen,  30. 

Mills,  Peter,  son  of  Peter  van  der  Meulen,  and 
B's  maternal  great-great-grandfather,  15. 

Mills,  Ruth,  descent  of,  15;  marries  Owen 
Brown,  12.  And  see  Brown,  Ruth  (Mills). 

Mills,  Ruth  (Humphrey),  B's  maternal  grand 
mother,  15. 

Mills,  Lt.-Cpl.  S.  S.,  467. 

Mina,  Spanish  leader  of  guerrillas,  53. 

Missouri,  crucial  position  of,  80;  her  relation  to 
Kansas  controversy,  83;  effect  of  Kansas 
election  of  1855  on  soberer  elements,  99;  B's 
raid  into,  367  seqq.;  its  deplorable  results, 
370  seqq.;  governor  offers  reward  for  B's 
arrest,  371. 

Missouri  Compromise,  repeal  of,  79. 

Missouri  Democrat,  99,  382. 

Missouri  River,  blockaded  by  Missourians 
against  Lane's  Free  State  force,  225. 

Missourians,  armed,  at  Osawatomie,  90;  fraud 
ulent  votes  cast  by,  in  Kansas  election  of 
1854,  94;  and  New  England  emigrants  to 
Kansas,  96;  their  preparations  for  the  second 
election  in  Kansas,  98,  and  easy  triumph,  98, 
99;  posing  as  Kansas  militia,  115,  116,  123, 
124;  refrain  from  voting  in  election  under 
Topeka  Const.,  except  in  Leavenworth,  128; 
in  camp  at  Black  Jack,  200;  raided  at  Frank 
lin,  212;  large  force  invades  Kansas,  257  seqq.; 
their  threatened  attack  on  Lawrence  averted 
by  Geary  and  Cooke,  259;  disbandment  of 
Atchison's  army  a  fatal  blow  to  their  hopes, 
261. 

Mitchel,  Prof.  Ormsby  M.,  563. 

Mitchell,  Col.  R.  R.,  349,  365. 

Mitchell,  W.  A.,  his  Historic  Linn  quoted,  356, 

Mobile  Tribune,  231. 

Moffet,  Charles  W.,  suspected  of  writing 
"  Floyd  letter,"  411;  308,  330,  344,  406,  409. 

Moneka  (Kansas),  B  at,  353,  354. 

Monroe,  S.,  alias  used  by  B  in  1859,  402. 

Montgomery,  James,  one  of  the  most  interest 
ing  figures  of  the  border  warfare,  350;  his 
Civil  War  record,  350,  351;  his  exploits  in 
Kansas,  351 ;  a  border  chieftain  after  B's  own 
heart,  352;  in  touch  with  B,  353;  attempted 
assassination  of,  363;  his  raid  on  Paris,  Kan 
sas,  364;  the  plot  to  capture  him  and  B,  365; 
at  Sugar  Mound  meeting,  365,  366;  attacks 
Fort  Scott,  in  violation  of  agreement  adopted 
by  that  meeting,  366;  his  reason  for  assuming 
leadership  of  this  exploit,  367;  reward  offered 
for  his  arrest,  371;  writes  to  Lawrence  Re 
publican,  377;  surrenders,  377;  speaks  in 
church  at  Lawrence,  377 ;  his  efforts  for  peace, 
378;  T.  W.  Higginson  concerning,  573;  inter 
ested  in  attempt  to  save  Stevens  and  Haz- 
lett,  573  seqq.;  his  daring  venture  in  that 
cause,  577,  578;  179,  180,  187,  349,  362,  370, 
373,  374.  375,  3?6,  377,  379,  514- 

Montgomery,  Mrs.  James,  350. 

Moore,  Mr.,  a  preacher,  201,  202,  208. 

Moore,  Eli,  murderer,  352. 

Morey,  Joseph  H,  246. 

Morgan,  Shubel,  alias  assumed  by  B  on  his  last 
visit  to  Kansas,  345,  352  seqq.;  articles  of 
agreement  and  roster  of  his  company,  666, 
667. 

Morgan,  William,  murder  of,  26. 

Morse,  Mr.,  ill-treated  by  Wilkinson,  Doyles, 
and  Sherman,  174,  175- 

Morse,  Mrs.  Emma  Wattles,  describes  B's  re 
turn  after  Missouri  raid,  371,  372;  describes 
one  of  his  narrow  escapes,  621  n.  86. 

Morse,  O.  E.,  his  Attempted  Rescue  of  John 
Brown,  656  n.  62. 

Morton,  Edwin,  320,  322,  535. 

Mott,  Lucretia,  50  n.,  510,  549. 


730 


INDEX 


Munroe,  Rev.  W.  C.,  colored,  president  of  Chat 
ham  Convention,  331. 
Myers,  Henry,  54. 
Myers,  Mrs.  Henry,  54. 

Napoleon  I,  life  of,  among  books  which  influ 
enced  B,  16,  325. 

Napoleon  III,  564. 

National  Democratic  Party  in  Kansas,  abortive 
attempt  to  form,  102. 

National  Kansas  Committee,  organized  at  Buf 
falo,  227 ;  work  of,  227 ;  meeting  in  New  York, 
Jan.  24,  1857,  275;  controversy  concerning 
rifles,  275;  votes  B  $5000  for  defensive  mea 
sures,  276;  charged  by  B  with  bad  faith,  276; 
its  affairs  confused  with  those  of  Mass.  Kan 
sas  Com.,  360,  361;  B's  requisition  on,  for 
outfit  for  volunteer-regulars,  664  seqq.;  269, 
294,  298,  317,  342,  357,  359,  360,  388,  389, 
58l. 

National  Republican  Party,  organized  at  Pitts- 
burg,  132;  147. 

Nebraska  City,  Lane's  caravan  at,  225. 

Negroes,  B's  plan  for  their  education,  44;  de 
nounced  by  B  in  Sambo's  Mistakes  for  their 
"  supineness  "  in  face  of  wrong,  50;  B  founds 
U.  S.  League  of  Gileadites  in  their  interest, 
50,  51 ;  signatures  of,  to  B's  agreement  and  re 
solutions,  52;  B's  counsel  to  those  in  No. 
Elba,  72;  assisted  by  B,  73;  their  settlement 
at  No.  Elba  not  a  success,  73 ;  advised  by  B  to 
resist  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  75 ;  in  Canada,  327, 
328;  in  B's  party  at  Chatham,  330,  331 ;  signi 
ficance  of  Chatham  Convention  to,  333,  334; 
no  uprising  among  them  induced  by  B's 
Harper's  Ferry  raid,  468,  469;  B's  negro  fol 
lowers  could  not  be  convicted  of  treason,  570. 

Negroes,  free,  two  conventions  of  Free  State 
party  in  Kansas  vote  to  exclude,  104,  105; 
excluded  by  popular  vote,  105. 

New  England,  recognizes  distinction  between 
"  butchery  "  and  "  killing,"  264,  265. 

New  England  Emigration  Society,  101,  227. 

New  England  Woolen  Co.,  and  B's  misuse  of 
money  advanced,  30. 

New  Englanders  in  Kansas,  epithets  applied 
to,  96. 

New  Georgia,  pro-slavery  settlement  at,  broken 
up,  229. 

New  Haven,  suppression  of  schools  for  negroes 
in,  45;  colony  from,  in  Kansas,  138;  278. 

New  Lucy,  steamboat,  81. 

New  Orleans  Bee,  14. 

New  York,  law  of,  concerning  indictments  like 
B's.  494  n. 

New  York  Abend-Zeitung,  474. 

New  York  City,  union  meeting  in,  563. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  350. 

New  York  Herald,  report  of  "  interview  "  be 
tween  B ,  Gov.  Wise,  and  others,  in  issue  of 
Oct.  21,  1859,  456-463;  H.  Forbes  in,  467;  at 
tacks  Gerrit  Smith  and  Seward,  472  ;  quoted, 
492,  493,  535;  125,  480,  486,  501,  518  n.,  568, 
583. 

New  York  Independent,  285,  318. 

New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  quoted,  501. 

New  York  Observer,  501. 

New  York  Times,  quoted  concerning  maltreat 
ment  of  Jason  Brown  and  John,  Jr.  as  prison 
ers,  196;  concerning  release  of  John,  Jr.,  254, 
255;  230,  373. 

New  York  Tribune,  aimed  at  by  penal  code  of 
Shawnee  Legislature,  92;  Black  Jack  affair 
discussed  in,  202;  publishes  B's  account  of 
Black  Jack  affair,  204-207;  quoted,  378,  488; 
and  the  attack  on  Harper's  Ferry,  472;  mis 
taken  editorial  comment  of,  631  n.  42;  49,  93, 
95,  96,  123,  126,  129,  137,  138,  139,  172,  174, 
175,  179,  192,  197,  199,  213,  220,  234,  235, 
244,  285,  287,  480,  490,  518,  520,  548  n.,  570. 


Newby,  Dangerfield,  in  B's  Harper's  Ferry 
party,  415,  419;  killed  by  R.  B.  Washington, 
439J  the  first  of  the  raiders  to  die,  439;  his 
body  treated  with  shocking  indignity,  439; 
sketch  of,  686. 

Nicolay  and  Hay,  Life  of  Lincoln,  326. 

"  Noble  Sons  of  Liberty,  The,"  519. 

North,  ignorance  in,  of  demoralization  and  law 
lessness  of  Free  State  men,  265;  opinion  in, 
unfavorably  affected  by  B's  speedy  trial,  479, 
480;  predicament  of  B's  supporters  in,  after 
the  failure  at  Harper's  Ferry,  528  seqq.;  out 
burst  of  feeling  in,  after  B's  execution,  559. 

North  Elba,  negro  settlement  in  Adirondacks, 
67;  visited  by  B,  71;  B's  first  settlement  at, 
72;  settlers  displeased  by  arrival  of  negroes, 
73;  why  negro  settlement  there  was  not  a 
success,  73;  B's  second  home  at,  76. 

Northern  press,  attitude  of,  toward  raids  com 
mitted  by  Free  State  men  and  by  pro-slavery 
men  in  Kansas,  212;  ignores  Free  State  out 
rages,  264. 

Nute,  Rev.  Ephraim,  215,  255. 

Oberlin  College,  Owen  Brown  a  supporter  and 
trustee  of,  15;  B's  negotiations  with  trustees 
of,  concerning  purchase  of  real  estate  in  Vir- 

O'Cono'r,  Charles,  563. 

Ohio,  early  settlement,  8,  9;  wild  animals  in,  9. 

Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  Canal,  27. 

"  Old  Osawatomie  Brown,"  name  by  which  B 
was  known  after  battle  of  Osawatomie,  244. 

Oliver,  Mordecai,  member  of  Congress  from 
Missouri,  on  Howard  Com.,  94  n.;  quoted 
concerning  A.  Wilkinson,  156;  charges  Free 
State  leaders  with  inspiring  B's  Pottawato- 
mie  expedition,  183,  184;  files  report  of  mino 
rity  of  Howard  Com.,  226;  161,  191. 

Orsini,  his  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon  com 
pared  by  A.  Lincoln  to  B's  raid,  564. 

Osawatomie,  Rev.  S.  L.  Adair  settles  at,  79;  B's 
sons  settle  at,  81;  B  arrives  at,  88;  condition 
of  Brown  settlement,  in  freezing  weather,  88; 
first  brigade  of  Kansas  volunteers  enrolled  at, 
121 ;  election  of  Jan.  1856,  130;  settlers'  meet 
ing,  134,  135;  public  meeting  at,  condemns 
Pottawatomie  murders,  168,  169;  no  killings 
and  but  five  definite  pro-slavery  offences  in 
neighborhood  prior  to  those  murders,  171, 
172;  pillaged  by  Whitfield's  men,  212,  213; 
"  reign  of  terror  "  in,  214;  B  and  Free  State 
men  at,  Aug.  29,  1856,  239,  240;  attack  on, 
241;  destroyed  after  battle,  246;  sources  for 
story  of  the  battle,  619  n.  50. 

Osawkee,  raided  by  A.  D.  Stevens,  254. 

Ottawa  Indians,  9,  133- 

Ottawa  Jones.   See  Jones,  J.  T. 

Ottendorfer,  Oswald,  575. 

Oviatt,  Heman,  27,  28,  33,  37~39- 

Oviatt,  Orson  M.,  17. 

Owen,  Mr.,  380. 

Packer,  William  F.,  Gov.  of  Pennsylvania,  524 

Painter,  John  H.,  312,  316,  389. 

Palmyra,  Battle  of,  B's  name  for  Black  Jack 

fight,  204. 

Paola  (Kansas),  193,  194- 
"  Parallels  ":  the  Marais  des  Cygnes  massacre, 

contrasted  with  B's  Missouri  raid,  by  B,  375, 

376. 

Paris  (France),  B's  visit  to,  61. 
Paris  (Kansas),  raided  by  B  and  Montgomery, 

364. 

Paris  (Mo.)  Mercury,  99. 
Parker,  Laben,  murder  of,  215. 
Parker,  Nathaniel,  253. 
Parker,  Judge  Richard,  presides  at  trial  of  B 

and  other  raiders,  476,  479  seqq.;  reviews  the 

trial  in  1888  (St.  Louis  Globe- Democrat),  481* 


INDEX 


73i 


482;  his  impartiality  and  judicial  spirit,  482; 
charges  grand  jury,  488;  denies  B's  request 
for  delay,  489;  refuses  to  delay  trial  on  ac 
count  of  change  of  counsel,  493,  494;  denies 
motion  to  require  prosecution  to  elect,  494 
and  n.;  his  decisions  upheld  by  Court  of  Ap 
peals,  494;  denies  motion  for  arrest  of  judg 
ment,  497;  pronounces  sentence  of  death, 
499;  sketch  of,  644  n.  36;  484,  485,  490,  492, 
521,  546,  588. 

Parker,  Rev.  Theodore,  his  attitude  toward  B, 
272;  his  John  Brown's  Expedition,  quoted, 
529;  after  the  failure  at  Harper's  Ferry,  529; 
quoted,  564;  269,  271,  273,  274,  289,  298, 320, 
324,  326,  339,  340,  397,  565.  Letters  to  B,  325, 
F.  Jackson,  564;  from  B,  324. 

Parkville  (Mo.)  Luminary,  destroyed  by  pro- 
slavery  mob,  99,  100. 

Parrott,  Marcus  j.,  elected  delegate  to  Con 
gress  in  Oct.  1857,  306. 

Parsons,  Luke  F.,  in  battle  of  Osawatomie.  243 
seqq.;  232,250,  253,308,  313,  3*4,  3iS,  33O, 
343,  344,  409. 

Partridge,  George  W.,  killed  in  the  river,  245; 
196,  237,  239, 514. 

Partridge,  Mary,  and  the  plot  to  rescue  B,  514. 

Partridge,  William,  121,  358. 

Pate,  Henry  C.,  his  John  Brown  as  viewed  by 
Henry  Clay  Pate,  quoted  concerning  Potta- 
watomie  murders,  156;  and  concerning  Black 
Jack,  202,  203;  in  Missouri  Republican,  189; 
goes  to  assist  U.  S.  marshal  to  arrest  murder 
ers,  193;  his  earlier  and  later  history,  201;  in 
camp  at  Black  Jack,  202;  B's  story  of  the 
"  battle  "  with  him,  202,  203;  claims  to  have 
been  taken  prisoner  by  treachery,  203;  his 
story  in  N.  Y.  Tribune,  203;  why  he  resorted 
to  a  flag  of  truce,  203,  204,  205;  his  story  re 
viewed  by  B  in  the  Tribune,  204-207;  his 
written  agreement  with  B  and  Capt.  Shore, 
207;  his  later  account  of  the  battle,  after  the 
Harper's  Ferry  raid,  207;  his  captivity  and 
release,  208;  visits  B  in  jail,  546;  his  challenge 
to  Horace  Greeley,  613  n.  19;  200,  211,  212, 
283. 

Pawnee  Legislature.    See  Shawnee  Legislature, 

Peabody,  S.  E.,  281. 

Pearson,  Henry  G.,  his  Life  of  John  A.  An 
drew,  quoted,  557. 

Pennington,  William,  of  New  Jersey,  chosen 
Speaker  of  the  House  over  John  Sherman, 
585. 

Perham,  Josiah,  524,  525. 

Perkins,  Anna,  daughter  of  Simon,  quoted,  65, 
595  n.  42. 

Perkins,  George  T.,  son  of  Simon,  letter  to 
author.  64. 

Perkins,  Simon,  Jr.  partner  of  B  in  sheep-raising 
(1844),  34,  35,  39,  41;  B's  admiration  of 
him,  64;  his  generous  treatment  of  B,  64,  65; 
further  business  relations  with  B,  66,  67. 

Perkins  and  Brown,  office  of,  in  Springfield,  57; 
business  of,  58,  59;  exporting  wool,  59; 
troubles  with  manufacturers,  60;  ill-success  of 
B's  trip  to  Europe,  61  seqq.;  increasing  diffi 
culties  and  final  failure,  64,  65;  law-suits  by 
and  against,  64,  65,  75;  their  creditors,  64;  75. 
Letters  to  Crafts  and  Still,  59,  Hamilton  Gay, 
59,  B.  W.  Ladd,  60. 

Perkins  Hill,  35. 

Perry,  Gov.  of  Florida,  his  message  to  the  legis 
lature,  584. 

Peticolas,  Dr.  A.  E..  letter  to  A.  Hunter,  504  n. 

Phelps,  B.  and  O.  conductor,  432,  433,  434. 

Phil  (Allstadt's  negro),  468. 

Philadelphia,  B's  body  at,  561;  anti-slavery 
convention  at,  562. 

Philadelphia  North  American,  quoted  concern 
ing  dispersal  of  Topeka  Free  State  Legisla 
ture,  220. 


Phillips,  Wendell,  his  address  at  B's  grave,  562 ; 
271,  281,  330,  510,  516,  545,  554,  560,  561, 
563,  565,  574- 

Phillips,  William,  friend  of  C.  McCrea,  tarred 
and  feathered,  no;  murdered  at  Leaven- 
worth,  252;  123,  124,  125,  129,  179,  181. 

Phillips,  W.  A.,  his  Conquest  of  Kansas,  quoted, 
96,  97,  602  n.  13;  concerning  pro-slavery  out 
rages,  214;  starts  for  Topeka  with  B,  220;  de 
scribes  the  journey  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  221; 
293,  296,  304  n.,  352,  362. 

"  Pickles,"  with  B  in  Missouri  raid,  368. 

Pickman,  W.  D.,  281. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  President  of  U.  S.,  special 
message  concerning  Shawnee  Legislature,  and 
acts  of  Free  State  men,  130;  proclamation  in 
favor  of  pro-slavery  men,  130,  131;  Gov. 
Shannon  reports  fight  at  Black  Jack  to,  211; 
his  despatches  to  Shannon,  211;  makes  Col. 
Sumner  a  scapegoat,  217;  calls  Congress  in 
special  session  (Aug.  1856),  227;  removes 
Gov.  Shannon  from  office,  234;  failure  of  his 
administration  to  support  Gov.  Geary  causes 
Geary's  resignation,  294;  93,115,  117,  132, 
134,  135,  138,  139,  144  n.,  169,  209,  233- 

Pike,  J.  A..  575,  576,  580. 

Pike,  J.  D.,  quoted,  599  n.  43. 

Pinker  ton,  A.,  and  B's  party  of  freed  slaves,  390. 

Platte  County  Argus,  quoted,  96. 

Platte  County  Riflemen,  commanded  by  Atchi- 
son  in  movement  on  Lawrence,  144. 

Pleasant  Valley  (Md.),  false  alarm  at,  470,  471. 

Plummer,  Charles,  alias  of  C.  P.  Tidd,  579. 

Plutarch's  Lives",  16,  325. 

Pomeroy,  S.  C.,  concerning  Pottawatomie  mur 
ders,  182;  inaccuracies  in  his  letter,  183;  ar 
rested  on  entering  Kansas,  260;  visits  B  in 
jail,  546;  119,  272,  512.  Letter  to  Rebecca  B 
Spring,  182. 

Pomeroy  Guards,  149,  150. 

Portage  (O.)  Sentinel,  473,  474,  569. 

Post,  Zina,  41. 

Pottawatomie  Creek,  murders  on,  May  24-25, 
1856,  148  seqq.;  first  reported  to  Free  State 
companies,  151;  attitude  of  Free  vState  men 
toward,  167,  168;  possible  justification  of,  dis 
cussed,  170  seqq.;  not  due  to  meeting  at 
Dutch  Henry's,  177;  were  they  a  peace  mea 
sure?  1 80;  called  a  just  act  of  retaliation  for 
sack  of  Lawrence,  etc.,  180;  not  both  a  peace 
and  a  war  measure,  181 ;  did  not  put  an  end  to 
Border  Ruffian  violence,  181;  successful  as  a 
war  measure,  181,  182;  defended  by  S.  C. 
Pomeroy,  182,  183;  victims  not  tried  by  jury, 
184,  185;  deprived  Free  State  cause  of  a  great 
moral  advantage,  187,  188;  ethically  and 
morally  without  excuse  or  palliation,  187, 
188;  sensational  announcement  of,  by  Mis 
souri  journals,  189;  persons  under  arrest  for, 
189;  press  comments  on,  190,  191;  not  men 
tioned  by  Liberator,  191;  reported  to  Pres. 
Pierce  by  Shannon,  192;  news  of,  posted  in 
Leavenworth,  192;  meeting  of  Law-and-Order 
party  concerning,  192;  Whitfield's  men  take 
revenge  for,  at  Osawatomie,  212,  213;  coun 
try  not  "  at  peace  "  after,  213;  in  Oliver's  re 
port  of  minority  of  Howard  Com.,  226;  did 
not  injure  Free  State  cause  in  the  North, 
226;  little  known  about  them  in  Boston  at 
time  of  B's  first  visit,  274;  B's  connection 
with  them  never  known  to  G.  L.  Stearns,  274; 
what  of  other  Boston  friends?  274;  B's  con 
nection  with  them,  545;  authorities  for  story 
of,  608  headnote.  And  see  Doyle  family, 
Wilkinson,  and  Sherman,  Dutch  Bill. 

"  Pottawatomies,"  John  Brown,  Jr.'s  company, 
149,  150;  revulsion  of  feeling  among,  after  the 
murders,  166. 

Potter,  Rt.  Rev.  H.  C.,  558  n. 
Powers,  Theo.  P.,  244. 


732 


INDEX 


Prairie  City  Rifles,  B's  force  at  Black  Jack  so- 
called,  201. 

Press,  North  and  South,  comments  of,  on  B 
and  the  raid,  568,  569- 

Preston,  Col.  J.  T.  L.,  556,  557.  And  see  Allen, 
Elizabeth  Preston. 

Preston,  Wm.  J.,  deputy  U.  S.  marshal,  afraid 
to  serve  warrants,  210. 

Price,  C.  H.,  chairman  of  public  meeting  at 
Osawatomie,  168,  169. 

Price,  Hiram,  390. 

Pro-slavery  Congressmen,  effect  of  their  ac 
tion,  to  unify  Free  State  determination,  139. 

Pro-slavery  leaders,  of  Missouri,  contemptuous 
of  Free  State  movement,  108;  meet  at  Frank 
lin  after  treaty  of  peace,  124;  and  Border 
Ruffian  invasion  of  Kansas  under  Buford, 
138;  exultation  over  Lawrence  burnings,  146; 
ascribe  all  virtues  to  Pottawatomie  victims, 
156,  157. 

Pro-slavery  men,  unseated  in  Kansas,  99;  div 
ers  outrages  perpetrated  by,  110,  in  and  n.; 
Weiner's  complaints  of  their  outrages  re 
sponsible  for  B's  Pottawatomie  plan,  151, 
152;  names  of  certain  men  selected  by  H.  H. 
Williams  for  death,  152;  offences  committed 
by,  in  Osawatomie  region  prior  to  murders, 
171,  172;  raided  by  Free  State  men  at  Frank 
lin,  212;  W.  A.  Phillips,  concerning  outrages 
committed  by,  214;  more  guilty  than  Free 
State  men  in  respect  to  crimes  of  violence, 
215;  attitude  of  non-slaveholders  among, 
216;  plunder  Quaker  mission,  235;  in  force  in 
neighborhood  of  B's  company,  237;  attacked 
by  Cline,  and  put  to  flight,  237;  raid  Osawa 
tomie,  240  seqq.;  deny  charges  of  outrages, 
264;  control  Lecompton  Const.  Conv.,  296; 
joint  meeting  with  Free  State  men  adopts  B's 
peace  agreement,  366;  attempt  to  check  B's 
journey  with  freed  slaves,  381  seqq.,  388. 

Pro-slavery  outrages  in  Kansas  in  summer  of 
1856,  214,  215. 

Pro-slavery  party,  in  Kansas,  early  triumphs  of, 
94,  95;  its  hatred  of  Gov.  Reeder  the  true 
reason  of  his  dismissal,  100;  its  duty  accord 
ing  to  Stringfellow,  101;  Law-and-Order 
party  formed  by,  108;  homicides  by,  112, 
113;  and  the  rescue  of  Branson,  113,  114; 
forces  raised  by,  to  besiege  Lawrence,  114 
seqq.;  Pres.  Pierce's  proclamation  in  support 
of,  130,  131;  finds  in  Pottawatomie  murders 
an  answer  to  Northern  criticisms  of  sack  of 
Lawrence,  188;  turns  against  Gov.  Walker, 
295;  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Lecompton 
Const.,  346  seqq.;  passage  of  English  bill  by 
Congress  a  victory  for,  347;  finally  defeated 
in  election  of  Aug.  2,  1858,  347,  348. 

Pro-slavery  press,  attitude  of,  concerning  Pot 
tawatomie  murders,  189-191. 

Pro-slavery  settlements  in  Linn  and  Bourbon 
counties  threatened  by  B,  235. 

"  Provisional  Constitution  and  Ordinances  for 
the  People  of  the  U.  S.,"  drawn  up  by  B.,  332 
seqq.;  preamble  of,  334;  provisions  of,  dis 
cussed,  334,  335!  some  parts  suggest  insanity, 
334.335;  extraordinary  provisions  concerning 
treaty-making,  335;  Article  46,  336. 

Provisional  Constitutional  Convention  at  Chat 
ham,  331  seqq.  And  see  Chatham  Conven 
tion. 

Pryor,  Judge  Roger  A.,  506  n. 

Quaker    Mission,    plundered    by    pro-slavery 

men,  235. 
Quin,  Luke,  marine,  killed  in  engine  house,  454. 


Radical  Political  Abolitionists,  hold  convention 

at  Syracuse,  85. 
Ram's  Horn,  Sambo's  Mistakes  published  in,  50. 


Randolph,  Penn.,  B  postmaster  at,  43. 

Ravenna  (Ohio),  27,  36,  37. 

Reader,  Samuel  J.,  his  impressions  of  B,  223, 
224. 

Realf ,  Richard,  his  report  of  B's  speech  to  Chat 
ham  Convention,  331,  332;  elected  "  Sec'y  of 
State  "  at  that  convention,  333;  suspected  of 
writing  "Floyd  letter,"  411;  308,  310,  311, 
312,  315,  3l6,  329,  337,  338,  343,  344,  413. 
Letter  to  B,  294,  H.  C.  Gill,  330. 

Recruiting  of  settlers  for  Kansas,  137  seqq. 

Redpath,  James,  his  Public  Life  of  Captain 
John  Brown,  quoted,  63,  199,  345;  describes 
B's  camp  on  Ottawa  Creek,  199,  200;  his  book 
hastily  written,  574;  139,  174,  179,  296,  301, 
352,  421,  517,  533,  582,  583.  Letter  from 
James  Foreman,  21-23. 

Reed,  Rev.  B.  L.,  348,  375. 

Reed,  J.  H.,  alias  of  R.  J.  Hinton,  576. 

Reeder,  Andrew  H.,  first  territorial  governor  of 
Kansas,  orders  .second  election  (1855),  98; 
unseats  pro-slavery  men  elected  to  legisla 
ture,  99;  declares  first  Territorial  legislature 
illegal,  100;  his  contention  denied  by  judges, 
100;  dismissed  by  Pres.  Pierce,  ostensibly  for 
speculation  in  Indian  lands,  100;  becomes 
leader  of  Free  Soilers,  100;  regarded  in  East 
as  martyr  to  abolition  cause,  100;  leaves 
Kansas  in  disguise  (1856),  101,  143;  elected 
delegate  to  Congress  by  Free  State  votes, 
106;  his  election  ignored  by  Shannon,  106, 
and  declared  illegal  by  Howard  Com.,  107  n.; 
elected  provisionally  U.  S.  Senator  by  Free 
State  Legislature,  132;  indicted  for  treason, 
142;  his  election  as  delegate  confirmed  by 
Committee  on  Elections,  but  denied  by 
House,  226;  declines  B's  invitation  to  return 
to  Kansas  and  assume  leadership  of  Free 
State  party,  282;  but  sympathizes  with  B's 
plans,  282;  140,  190,  294. 

Reese,  Louis  A.  The  Admission  of  Kansas 
(MSS.),  629  n.  i. 

Reid.  Gen.  John  W.,  in  attack  on  Osawatomie, 
240  seqq.;  denies  that  there  was  a  battle,  246; 
protests  in  vain  against  destruction  of  Osa 
watomie  by  his  men,  246;  his  report  of  the 
affair,  246,  247;  257. 

Reisner,  Henry,  describes  B's  arrival  at  Law 
rence,  Sept.  7,  1856,  253. 

Republican  National  Convention  (the  first),  and 
Kansas,  226. 

Republican  Press,  and  the  Pottawatomie  mur 
ders,  191;  and  Harper's  Ferry,  472-474. 

Rescue,  plans  of  Le  Barnes  and  others,  51 1 
seqq.;  frowned  upon  by  B,  512. 

Reynolds,  Ephraim,  Sergeant  of  Liberty 
Guards,  121. 

Reynolds,  Robert,  246. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  his  History  of  the  U.  S., 
191,  294,  612  n.  89. 

Rice,  Benjamin,  366,  576,  580. 

Richardson,  Richard,  a  runaway  slave,  308, 
316;  discriminated  against  in  Chicago,  329; 
330,  337,  338,  344,  4U- 

Richardson,  Gen.  W.  P.,  and  the  "  Wakarusa 
War,"  114,  116;  192. 

Richman,  Irving  B.,  his  John  Brown  among  the 
Quakers,  316. 

Richmond  (Penn.),  23  seqq.,  43. 

Richmond  (Va.)  sends  militia  to  Harper's  Ferry, 
444. 

Richmond  Despatch,  quoted,  518. 

Richmond  Enquirer,  quoted,  475,  476,  568. 

Richmond  Grays,  469. 

Richmond  Whig,  quoted,  500. 

Riddle,  Albert  G.,  his  Personal  Recollections  of 
War  Times,  646  n.  74. 

Ripley  (Va.),  31,  48. 

Ritchie,  Capt.  John,  reinforces  B  near  Topeka 
(Jan.  1859),  38i  seqq.;  449- 


INDEX 


733 


Robertson,  Richard.  See  Richardson,  Richard. 

Robinson,  Charles,  Free  Soil  leader,  obtains 
rifles  from  Emigrant  Aid  Society,  98;  chair 
man  of  Com.  on  Resolutions  in  Free  State 
Convention  of  Aug.  14-15,  1856,  102;  in  sec 
ond  convention  of  Aug,  15,  103;  chairman  of 
Territorial  Exec.  Com.,  106;  addresses  meet 
ing  at  Lawrence  after  treaty  of  peace,  123, 
and  pro-slavery  meeting  at  Franklin,  124; 
invites  Shannon  and  Jones  to  peace  gather 
ing,  124;  his  ruse  and  its  result,  125,  126; 
Free  Soil  candidate  for  governor,  129;  his 
inaugural  address,  132;  Kansas  member  of 
Nat.  Republican  Com.,  132;  at  indignation 
meeting  for  shooting  of  Mace,  141;  indicted 
for  treason,  142 ;  and  for  avoiding  arrest  on  in 
dictment  not  yet  found,  142,  143;  in  confine 
ments  four  months,  143;  his  house  burned, 
146;  quoted  concerning  Pottawatomie  mur 
ders,  169,  170;  said  to  have  inspired  the  mur 
ders,  183,  184;  denies  all  complicity  in  them, 
184;  likens  B  to  Jesus,  and  later  denounces 
him,  184;  his  Kansas  Conflict,  232  n.,  596  n.  4; 
and  Gov. Shannon,  234;  favorably  impressed 
by  Gov.  Geary,  257 ;  significance  of  his  letters 
as  bearing  on  the  question  who  saved  Kan 
sas  262;  controversy  with  John  Brown,  Jr., 
concerning  interview  with  B,  263;  at  Topeka 
Convention,  296;  101,  108,  122,  140,  150,  190, 
191,  255,  265,  266,  271,272,207,307,346,367. 
Letters  to  B,  262,  263. 

Robinson,  Michael,  murdered  by  Hamilton's 
gang,  348,  375. 

Robinson,  Mrs.  Sara  T.  L.,  wife  of  Charles, 
her  Kansas:  its  Interior  and  Exterior  Life, 
89  n.,  97,  98,  142;  concerning  assaults  on  wo 
men,  173,  174;  179, 192,  598  n.  31,611,  n.  64, 
613  n.  7. 

Rollin's  Ancient  History,  16. 

Ropes,  Hannah  Anderson,  her  Six  Months  in 
Kansas,  89  n. 

Rosengarten,  Joseph  G.,  his  account  of  the 
aftermath  of  the  raid,  469,  470. 

Ross,  Patrick,  murdered  by  Hamilton's  gang, 
348. 

Rosser,  Col.  P.  H.,  240. 

Root,  Dr.  J.  P.,  conductor  of  Nat.  Kansas  Com. 
"  train  "  to  Tabor,  269,  270.  Letter  from  J. 
D.  Webster,  269. 

Rotch,  W.  J.,  281. 

Rowan,  Captain,  436,  438. 

Russell,  G.  R.,  325. 

Russell,  Judge  Thomas,  B  in  hiding  at  his  house 
in  Boston,  288;  quoted  concerning  B's  speech 
before  sentence,  498  n.;  visits  B  in  jail,  545; 
quoted,  647  n.  83;  271,  493,  512. 

Russell,  Mrs.  Thomas,  288,  512,  545. 

Russell,  Maj.  W.  W.,  a  volunteer  in  Lieut. 
Green's  storming  party,  452  seqq.;  sketch  of, 
642  n.  62;  450,  462  n. 

Rutherford,  Dr.  W.  W.,  576. 

St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  city  attorney  of,  a  fraudulent 
voter  in  Kansas,  94. 

St.  Louis  Evening  News,  quoted  as  to  affairs  in 
Kansas,  216;  as  to  the  raid,  472. 

St.  Louis  Intelligencer,  99,  117. 

St.  Louis  Missouri-Democrat,  199,  371. 

St.  Louis  Missouri-Republican,  83,  156,  189, 
190,  191,  193,  201. 

St.  Louis  Morning  Herald  and  the  Pottawa 
tomie  murders,  191;  247. 

St.  Louis  Pilot,  95. 

Sacs  and  Foxes,  in  Kansas,  90. 

Sambo's  Mistakes,  50;  quoted  in  full,  659-661. 

Sanborn,  Franklin  Benjamin,  B's  first  meeting 
with,  271;  his  first  impressions  of  B,  271;  in 
troduces  B  to  other  friends  of  the  cause,  271; 
Stid  sale  of  Thompson  farm  to  B.  281 ;  defends 
against  blame  for  delay,  303;  withB  at  Ger- 


rit  Smith's,  321,  322;  agrees  with  Smith  to 
support  B,  322;  B  visits  him  in  May,  1859, 
395;  his  faithful  labors  in  the  cause,  395,  396; 
his  statement  as  to  the  conspirators'  know 
ledge  of  B's  plans,  397;  after  the  failure  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  529,  530;  his  opinion  of  Dr. 
Howe's  card,  533;  his  account  of  hia  own 
movements,  533;  arrested,  533,  534;  his  Life 
and  Letters  nf  John  Brown,  quoted,  28,  29,  46, 
341,  361;  his  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years, 
quoted,  321,  530,  533,  627  n.  27;  his  John 
Brown  and  his  Friends,  and  Virginia  Cam 
paign  of  John  Brown,  quoted,  421;  184,  275, 
277,  282,  284,  298,  299,  305,  319,  320,  324, 
325,  330,  330,  338,  340,  342,  399.  421,  512, 
517,  536,  582.  Letters  to  T.  W.  Higginson, 
271,  303,  325,  326,  339,  396,  530;  from  B,  322, 
353,  354.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  45. 

Sanborn,  Miss,  534. 

Saunders,  "  Fort,"  near  Lawrence,  attacked  by 
Free  State  men,  231. 

Savannah  Republican,  quoted,  500. 

Sayre,  Dr.  Lewis  A.,  504  n. 

Scadsall,  C.  C.   See  Hadsall,  C.  C. 

Schoppert,  G.  A.,  and  the  killing  of  Leeman. 
440. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  326. 

Seaman,  Benjamin,  576. 

Seaman,  Henry  C.,  576,  580. 

Secession  issue,  as  affected  by  B's  execution, 
506. 

Secession  movement,  too  far  advanced  before 
the  raid  for  peaceable  solution,  587. 

Sedgwick,  Major  John,  quoted  concerning 
Lawrence  raid  and  Pottawatomie  murders, 
169;  concerning  dispersal  of  B's  force  after 
the  battle  of  Black  Jack,  209;  197,  212,  217, 
232,  234. 

Self-Defensive  Association,  in  Platte  Co.,  Mo., 
proceedings  of,  98;  compelled  to  disband, 
599  n.  66. 

Senate  of  U.  S.,  passes  Toombs  bill,  but  rejects 
Grow  bill,  227;  appoints  committee  to  inves 
tigate  raid,  478.  And  see  Grow,  G.  A.,  and 
Toombs,  Robert. 

Seneca  Indians,  9. 

Sennott,  George,  513,  570. 

Severns,  Charles,  372. 

Sewall,  S.  E.,  559,  560. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  and  H.  Forbes,  318;  attacked 
by  N.  Y.  Herald,  472;  quoted,  564,  565;  339, 
474,  502,  566. 

Shaler,  Nathaniel  S.,  autobiography,  quoted,  10. 

Shannon,  Wilson,  second  Territorial  Governor 
of  Kansas,  his  character,  103;  ignores  Reed- 
er's  election  as  delegate,  106;  and  the  Cole- 
man-Dow  murder  and  rescue  of  Branson, 
114  seqq.;  orders  out  militia  against  Lawrence, 
114;  his  duplicity,  115;  addresses  meeting  at 
Lawrence  after  treaty  of  peace,  123,  and  pro- 
slavery  meeting  at  Franklin,  124;  deceived  by 
Robinson,  gives  him  and  Lane  authority  to 
preserve  peace,  125;  his  letter  to  the  N.  Y. 
Herald,  125;  blamed  by  pro-slavery  men,  126; 
U.  S.  troops  in  Kansas  put  under  his  orders, 
131;  returns  to  Kansas.  132;  refuses  to  send 
troops  to  protect  citizens  of  Lawrence,  144; 
reports  to  Pres.  Pierce  as  to  effect  of  Potta 
watomie  murders,  169,  192;  reports  Black 
Jack  affair  to  same,  211;  his  difficulties,  211; 
his  proclamation,  211;  makes  requisition  for 
U.  S.  troops,  21 1 ;  Col.  Sumner  and  the  dis 
persal  of  the  Free  State  legislature,  217-220; 
effects  release  of  Titus  and  other  prisoners, 
and  resigns  governorship,  233,  234;  his  fare 
well  speech  to  citizens  of  Lawrence,  234;  his 
resignation  not  accepted,  234;  removed  by 
Pres.  Pierce,  234;  his  later  residence  in  Law 
rence,  234;  92,  108,  130,  133,  209.  Letter  to 
Col.  Sumner,  218. 


734 


INDEX 


Sharp's  rifles,  doctrine  of  opposing  slavery 
with,  commended  by  N.  Y.  Tribune,  49; 
shipped  to  Robinson  as  "  Revised  Statutes  ' 
and  "  books,"  98;  supplied  by  Mass.  Kans. 
Com.,  controversy  about,  275;  story  of  trans 
fer  of,  to  B,  in  spring  of  1858,  340  seqq. 

Shawnee  Legislature,  denounced  by  Free  State 
Convention,  91;  code  of  punishments  for 
Free  State  men,  enacted  by,  91,  92;  meeting 
and  organization  (at  Pawnee),  100;  declared 
illegal  by  Gov.  Reeder,  100;  petitions  Pres. 
Pierce  to  remove  Reeder,  100;  acts  of,  101; 
no  genuine  attempt  made  to  enforce  "  Black 
Laws,"  101;  attacked  by  successive  Free 
State  conventions,  102,  103;  denounced  by 
Big  Springs  Convention,  104;  declared  a  legal 
body  by  Pres.  Pierce,  130;  defied  by  settlers' 
meeting  at  Osawatomie,  134,  135;  its  laws 
declared  effective  by  Judge  Lecompte,  142; 
resistance  to  its  laws  declared  to  be  high  trea 
son,  142;  131,  136,  156. 

Shawnee  Mission,  sessions  of  pro-slavery  legis 
lature  held  at.  See  Shawnee  Legislature. 

Shelby,  Col.  Joseph,  225. 

Shepherdstown  Troop  at  Harper's  Ferry,  444. 

Sheridan,  Mrs.,  308. 

Sherman,  Dutch  Bill,  murder  of,  162-164; 
Harris's  story  of  the  murder,  162-164;  and 
Mary  Grant,  172,  173,  i?7;  and  the  Morse 
case,  174;  151,  155,  182. 

Sherman,  Dutch  Henry,  his  horses  taken  by 
B,  235;  murdered  by  Cransdell,  236;  and  Ot 
tawa  Jones,  253  and  n.;  135,  156,  162,  163, 
212. 

Sherman,  Dutch  Pete,  155. 

Sherman,  John,  member  of  Congress  from 
Ohio,  on  Howard  Com.,  94  n.;  and  W.  A. 
Howard,  report  of,  quoted,  120;  his  indorse 
ment  of  Helper's  book  causes  his  defeat  in 
Speakership  contest,  Dec.  1859,583,584,  585; 
184,  227.  Letter  to  Rev.  E.  B.  Jones  (1897), 
506  n. 

Sherman,  William.  See  Sherman,  Dutch  Bill. 

Shermans,  pro-slavery  settlement  of,  on  Potta- 
watomie  Creek,  135;  their  unsavory  reputa 
tion,  155,  156;  alleged  intimidation  by,  172; 
180. 

Shields,  Gen.,  letter  from  VV.  Limerick,  240. 

Shirley,  Walter,  520. 

Shore,  Samuel  T.,  captain  of  Osawatomie  com 
pany,  150;  in  Black  Jack  fight,  202  seqq.; 
many  of  his  men  quit,  202,  204;  and  return 
after  the  battle,  208;  killed  at  "  Fort  "  Titus, 
231,  232;  200,  240. 

Shriver,  Col.,  452. 

Silsbee,  Benj.  H.,  281. 

Silsbee,  John  H.,  281. 

Sinn,  Capt.,  his  interview  with  B  in  the  engine 
house,  447 ;  disgusted  with  conduct  of  citizens, 
447,  448;  protects  Stevens,  448;  his  fine  spirit, 
448  and  n.;  visits  B  in  jail,  544. 

Slave  States,  their  political  supremacy  endan 
gered  by  the  carving  of  new  states  out  of 
western  territory,  80. 

Slaveholders,  B's  object  at  one  time  to  terror 
ize,  56;  to  be  held  as  hostages  according  to  B's 
plan,  332. 

.Slavery,  B's  first  personal  knowledge  of,  4;  his 

'  second  experience  with,  17,  18;  hatred  of,  in 
'•his  family,  21;  its  forcible  overthrow  his 

-""greatest  and  principal  object,"  42  seqq.; 
.  gradual  evolution  of  his  plan  to  abolish,  48 

«•  seqq.;  to  be  attacked  elsewhere  than  in  Kan 
sas,  to  relieve  pro-slavery  pressure  there,  56; 
B's  main  purpose  to  come  to  close  quarters 
with,  56;  and  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  79; 
to  be  fastened  on  Kansas,  83;  opposition  to, 
made  a  disqualification  for  holding  office  by 
Shawnee  Legislature,  91;  mere  belief  in  its  il 
legality  a  grave  crime,  92;  its  existence  de 


pendent  on  its  fate  in  Kansas,  according  to 
pro-slavery  leaders,  97 ;  the  one  issue  in  Kan 
sas,  according  to  Stringfellow,  101;  opposi 
tion  to,  disavowed  by  Big  Springs  Conven 
tion,  104;  tendency  of,  to  induce  lawless  ac 
tion,  171 ;  B's  plan  to  attack  it  in  Virginia  di 
vulged  to  his  recruits,  308 ;  all  his  recruits  bit 
terly  hostile  to,  310;  characterized  in  "  Pro 
visional  Constitution,"  334;  and  the  Lecomp- 
ton  Const.,  346;  Abolitionist  view  of,  384;  its 
fear  of  free  speech,  568;  the  sole  issue  in  cam 
paign  of  1860,  585;  would  have  been  abol 
ished  had  B  never  lived,  586,  587;  intolerable 
morally  and  economically,  587. 

Slavery  issue,  B's  views  on,  362;  impossible  to 
be  put  aside  after  B's  execution,  506. 

Slaves,  severe  penalty  for  encouraging  disaffec 
tion  among,  enacted  by  Shawnee  Legislature, 

t.  9i,  92;  two  freed  by  J.  Brown,  Jr.,  150,  151; 
small  number  in  Kansas,  295;  part  assigned 
to  them  in  B's  Virginia  plan,  and  in  Forbes's 
plan,  314,  332;  a  fugitive,  in  Canada,  327, 
328;  freed  by  B  in  Missouri  raid,  368,  369, 372, 
373;  more  carefully  guarded  after  Missouri 
raid,  378;  B's  journey  to  Canada  with  his 
freed  slaves,  379-390;  Northern  sentiment 
concerning  fugitives,  384;  fears  of  general  in 
surrection  aroused  by  news  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
436;  conduct  of  those  impressed  by  B  there, 
468. 

"Smelly,  Capt.  James,"  519. 

Smith,  A.  L.,  and  the  "  Floyd  letter,"  411,  412. 

Smith,  Geo.  W.,  commanding  first  brigade  of 
Kansas  Volunteers,  121;  indicted  for  treason, 
142,  and  arrested,  145;  elected  Gov.  of  Kan 
sas  under  Lecompton  Const.,  346. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  his  suit  against  Chicago  Tribune, 
46;  offers  land  to  negroes,  71;  becomes  B's 
warm  friend,  71;  his  earnest  opposition  to 
slavery,  71;  described  by  Greeley,  71,  72; 
gives  money  to  B  and  to  Forbes,  287;  ap 
proves  of  Forbes's  tract,  298;  his  affection  for 
B,  320;  B's  plans  made  known  to  and  ap 
proved  by  him,  320;  agrees  with  Sanborn  to 
support  B,  322;  rejoices  in  result  of  B's  Mis 
souri  raid,  379;  B's  last  visit  to,  395;  his  pub 
lic  approval  of  B's  course  contrasted  with  his 
later  attitude,  395;  after  the  raid,  535,  536; 
his  insanity,  535;  his  quick  recovery  and  sub 
sequent  denial  of  complicity  in,  or  knowledge 
of,  the  raid,  536;  84,  85,  269,  272,  277,  281, 
291,  293,  319,  327,  330,  333,  339,  340,  396, 
460,  472,  474.  522,  565. 

Smith,  I.,  alias  assumed  by  B  in  1859,  402,  404. 

"  Smith,  I.,  and  Sons,"  B,  Oliver  and  Owen  so 
known  at  Chambersburg,  402,  409. 

Smith,  Dr.  J.  V.  C.,  96. 

Smith,  James,  one  of  B's  noms  de  guerre,  292. 

Smith,  Judge,  255. 

Smith,  Owen,  alias  of  Owen  Brown,  416. 

Smith,  Gen.  Persifor  T.,  succeeds  Col.  Sumner 
in  Kansas,  217;  his  instructions  from  J .  Davis, 
Sec'y  of  War,  251;  condemns  acts  of  Reid's 
force,  251;  260. 

Smith,  Rev.  Stephen,  323. 

Smith,  W.  P.,  master  of  transportation  of  B. 
&  O.  R.  R.,  Conductor  Phelps's  dispatch  to, 
433,  434;  is  incredulous,  434;  519,  525. 

Snyder,  Charles,  348,  375. 

Snyder,  Eli,  headquarters  of  B's  party  with, 
353;  the  disputed  title  to  his  claim,  356,  357; 
tells  of  B's  encounter  with  Rev.  M.  White, 
3575  348,  354- 

Snyder,  Elias,  348. 

Soule,  Silas  C.,  514.  575,  576,  577,  578. 

South,  the,  not  a  colonizing  section,  265;  atti 
tude  toward  B,  474-476;  division  of  opinion 
in,  concerning  B's  fate  after  sentence,  500. 

South  Carolina,  pro-slavery  men  from,  in  Kan 
sas,  137,  138;  attitude  of,  585. 


INDEX 


735 


South  Middle  Creek,  fight  at,  237. 

Spartacus,  362. 

Speakership  contest,  in  House  of  Representa 
tives  in  1859-1860,  583,  585. 

Speer,  John,  181. 

Spinner,  F.  E.,  505  n. 

Spooner,  Lysander,  and  his  scheme  to  kidnap 
Gov.  Wise,  514  seqq. 

Spring,  Rebecca  B.,  visits  B  in  jail,  546  and  n.; 
549.  Letter  from  S.  C.  Pomeroy,  182. 

Springdale  (Iowa),  B  and  his  party  at,  312; 
their  life  there,  314  seqq.;  B  and  his  party  of 
freed  slaves  at,  387;  328,  329. 

Springdale  "  Legislature,"  a  mock  body,  315. 

Springfield  (Mass.),  B's  residence  at,  48,49,67; 
278. 

Springfield  Republican,  558. 

Squatter  Sovereign,  quoted,  93,  no,  129,  131, 
141,  178,  617  n.  i,  618  n.  39;  and  the  Potta- 
watomie  murders,  190. 

Squatter  Sovereignty  Idea,  all  of  Kansas's  mis 
fortunes  due  to,  347. 

Squatters'  Court,  judge  of,  called  "  Old  Brown," 
305. 

Staats-Zeitung,  575. 

"  Standish,  Miles,  of  Kansas,"  B  so  called  by 

A.  A.  Lawrence,  400. 

Stanton,  Frederick  P.,  Sec'y  of  State  of  Kansas 
under  Gov.  Walker,  removed  by  Pres.  Bu 
chanan,  295;  acting  governor,  306,  346. 

Star  of  the  West  (steamer),  142,  225. 

Starry,  Dr.  John  D.,  the  "  Paul  Revere  of 
Harper's  Ferry,"  434,  435;  rides  about,  giving 
the  alarm,  435;  quoted  as  to  progress  of 
events,  435,  436,  and  concerning  Kagi's 
death,  445;  saves  Copeland  from  being 
lynched,  445;  quoted,  510;  548  n. 

Startling  Incidents  and  Developments  of  Osa- 
watomie  Brown's  Insurrectory  and  Treason 
able  Movements  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Virginia, 
635  n.  116. 

Stearns,  Charles,  denounces  Big  Springs  Con 
vention  in  Kansas  Free  State,  104. 

Stearns,  Frank  P.,  his  Life  and  Public  Services  of 
George  Luther  Stearns,  quoted,  272,  274.  ••£ 

Stearns,  George  Luther,  B's  first  visit  to,  272; 
never  knew  of  B's  connection  with  Pottawa- 
tomie  murders,  274;  buys  revolvers  for  B, 
288,  289;  his  confidence  in  B  and  large  gener 
osity  to  the  cause,  292;  advises  contest  at 
polls  and  only  defensive  fighting,  306,  307; 
treachery  to  B's  policy  in  the  home  of  its 
friends,  307;  controversy  over  notes  sent  to 

B,  359-361 ;  turns  to  Kansas  for  aid  in  effect 
ing  B's  escape,   513;  goes  to  Canada  after 
raid,  530;  his  testimony  before  Mason  Com., 
534,  535;  7,  271,  279,  280,  281,  291,  297,  319, 
320,  324,  325,  326,  333,  338,  339,  340,  341. 
342,  343.  396,  397,  399,  582.    Letters  to  B,  339, 
E.  B.  Whitman,  306;  from  B,  305,  E.  B.  Whit 
man,  304. 

Stearns,  Mrs.  G.  L.,  Alcott's  statement  in  her 
Emancipation  Evening  Album,  quoted,  398; 
544,  546. 

Stearns,  Henry  L.,  letter  from  B,  1-7. 

Stephens,  Alex.  H.,  quoted,  587. 

Sterns,  Henry,  279. 

Stevens,  Aaron  Dwight,  his  first  meeting  with 
B,  224;  why  he  used  an  alias,  224;  raids  Osaw- 
kee,  254;  his  men  arrested  by  Marshal  Don- 

'•  aldson,  254;  kills  David  Cruise  in  Missouri 

•  raid,  369.  37o;  "  a  born  crank,"  419;  shot  by 
G.  W.  Chambers  while  carrying  flag  of  truce, 
439,  440;  protected  by  Capt.  Sinn,  448;  made 
prisoner  in  engine  house,  454;  his  pitiable 
condition  at  his  trial,  486;  his  personality, 
572,  573;  attempts  to  save  him  after  B's  exe 
cution,  572  seqq.;  executed,  580;  sketch  of, 
679,  680;  256,  308,  312.  315,  329,  330,  343, 
344,  353,  363,  364,  366,  368,  379,  38l,  382, 


385,  389,  390,  414,  420,  421,  427,  429,  431, 
432,  442,  456,  459,  460,  470,  471,  477,  478, 
479, 485, 487, 488,  489, 510,  545,  558  n.  Letter 
to  his  brother,  254. 

Stevens,  "  Thad.,"  anecdote  of,  505  n. 

Stewart,  Capt.,  217. 

Stewart,  Maj.-Gen.  Geo.  H.,  Maryland  Volun 
teers,  notified  by  Garrett  of  B's  raid,  434. 

Stewart,  James,  513. 

Stewart,  John,  shot  by  Border  Ruffians,  142, 
180. 

Still,  John,  239. 

Still,  William,  323,  549- 

Stilwell,  W.  E.,  murdered  by  Hamilton's  gang, 

Stocqueler,  J.  H..  his  Life  of  Field-Marshal  tht 
Duke  of  Wellington,  53. 

Stow,  Joshua,  37. 

Stratton,  H.,  letter  to  B,  235  n. 

Stribbling,  Dr.,  508. 

Strickler,  Adj. -Gen.  H.  J.,  and  the  "  Wakarusa 
War,"  114,  116. 

Strider,  Samuel,  summons  B  to  surrender,  447. 

Stringfellow,  B.  F.,  92,  94,  144,  145,  192,  216, 
229,  230,  257. 

Stringfellow,  Gen.  J.  H.,  Speaker  of  Kansas 
Territorial  House  of  Representatives,  92,  93, 
94,  ioi,  124,  144,  145. 

Stuart,  Alex.  H.  H.,  526. 

Stuart,  Charles,  85,  322. 

Stuart,  Lieut.  J.  E.  B.,  sent  to  Harper's  Ferry, 
450;  describes  disposition  made  and  parley 
with  "  Smith  "  (B),  450,  451;  text  of  his  sum- 
mons  toB,  451;  201,  209,  456,  458,  462  and  n., 
467,  470. 

"  Stubbs,"  258.  See  "  Lawrence  Stubbs." 

Sturtevant,  Mrs.  C.  M.,  391. 

Stulz,  Capt.,  233. 

Sugar  Mound  meeting  of  Free  State  and  pro- 
slavery  men,  adopts  B's  peace  agreement, 
366. 

Sultan  (steamer),  225. 

Sumner,  Charles,  effect  on  Pottawatomie  party 
of  news  of  Brooks's  assault  on,  154;  his 
"  Crime  against  Kansas  "  speech,  188,  599  n. 
61;  his  only  meeting  with  B,  327;  Brooks's 
assault  on,  587. 

Sumner,  Col.  Edwin  V.,  under  Gov.  Shannon's 
orders,  132;  his  troops  disperse  Free  State 
legislature,  132,  217-220;  releases  Pate  and 
his  men,  208;  disperses  B's  band  and  heads 
off  Border  Ruffians  under  Whitfield  and  Cof 
fee,  209;  criticised  by  pro-slavery  men  for  not 
arresting  B,  210;  and  Deputy- Marshal  Pres 
ton,  210;  and  Whitfield's  breach  of  faith,  213; 
on  furlough,  217;  in  disfavor  with  Pierce  ad 
ministration,  217;  slighted  by  Jefferson  Da 
vis,  217,  219;  made  a  scapegoat  by  Pres. 
Pierce,  217,  219;  his  speech  to  the  legisla 
ture,  219;  career  and  character  of,  615  n.  58; 
115,  144,  145,  206,  226,  381.  Letter  to  Acting- 
Gov.  Woodson,  218;  from  Jefferson  Davis, 
218,  Gov.  Shannon,  218. 

Sunderland,  La  Roy,  hypnotist,  B's  controversy 
with,  described  by  himself,  67,  68. 

Tabor  (Iowa),  a  colony  of  Ohiqans,  an  important 
station  on  Underground  Railroad,  267;  condi 
tions  in,  in  autumn  of  1856,  as  described  by 
Mrs.  Gaston,  267,  268;  B  arrives  at,  with  only 
$25,  292,  294;  intensely  "  Abolition,"  and 
loyal  to  B,  302;  conditions  at,  in  Feb.  1859, 
383,  384;  public  opinion  disapproves  of  some 
aspects  of  Missouri  raid,  384;  B  coolly  wel 
comed,  384;  public  meeting,  and  resolutions 
passed  thereat,  385;  fear  of  pro-slavery  at 
tacks,  386.  And  see  Todd,  Rev.  John. 

Taliaferro,  Maj.-Gen.  W.  B.,  Gov.  Wise's  in- 
struction  to,  523;  522,  527,  549.  550,  558. 

TaUmadge  (Ohio),  semi-centennial,  293. 


736 


INDEX 


Tappan,  Lewis,  85. 

Tappan,  Samuel  F.,  resists  arrest,  140;  assistant 
clerk  of  Topeka  Free  State  Legislature,  219; 
380. 

Tate,  Geo.  H.,  520. 

Tayleure,  C.  W.,  letter  to  John  Brown,  Jr.,  454, 
455- 

Taylor,  Dr.,  448. 

Taylor,  Jacob  L.,  quoted  concerning  Stewart 
Taylor,  684,  685. 

Taylor,  Stewart,  in  B's  Harper's  Ferry  party, 
414,  419,  424;  death  of,  449;  sketch  of,  684, 
685;  328,  330,  343,  344- 

Teesdale,  John,  editor  of  Des  Moines  Register, 
386;  Letter  from  B,  386. 

Territorial  Executive  Committee,  created  by 
Big  Springs  Convention,  106;  report  of,  132; 
91,  304. 

Tessaun,  half-breed  Indian,  383. 

Texas,  annexation  of,  79. 

Thayer,  Eli,  his  History  of  the  Kansas  Crusade, 
quoted,  146;  B's  host  in  Worcester,  Mass., 
281;  contributes  weapons,  282;  265,  287,  289. 
Letter  from  G.  A.  Crawford,  374. 

Thayer,  Wm.  W.,  574.  579- 

Thomas,  H.  K.,  246. 

Thomas,  John  A.,  colored,  338. 

Thomas,  Thomas,  55- 

Thompson,  Dauphin  Osgood,  in  B's  Harper's 
Ferry  party,  414,  419,  420;  death  of,  in  en 
gine  house,  449,  454  and  n.;  sketch  of,  683; 
462  n.,  537,  558  n. 

Thompson,  George,  first  condemns,  then  ap 
proves  Pottawatomie  murders,  168. 

Thompson,  Henry,  marries  B's  daughter  Ruth, 
76;  goes  to  Kansas,  76;  en  route  to  Kansas 
with  B,  86;  anecdote  of  B  told  by,  88;  and  the 
claim-jumper,  130;  on  B's  surveying  tour, 
133;  his  regard  for  B,  134;  in  B's  Pottawa 
tomie  party,  153;  Wilkinson  and  Sherman 
killed  by  Wiener  and  him,  162,  164;  denies 
that  Judge  Wilson  was  on  prescribed  list,  165; 
charges  Robinson  with  urging  B  to  further 
killings,  184;  denies  that  Pottawatomie  vic 
tims  were  tried  by  jury,  184;  wounded  at 
Black  Jack,  203,  208;  quoted,  224;  declines 
to  reenlist  for  Virginia  expedition,  323,  324; 
declines  to  join  B  at  Harper's  Ferry,  413;  81 
n.,  112,  118,  127,  135,  136,  149,  155,  159,  160, 
198,  202,  210,  220,  222,  561.  Letters  to  Mrs. 
Ruth  (Brown)  Thompson,  133. 

Thompson,  Isabella,  sister  of  Dauphin  O., 
Henry,  and  William,  marries  Watson  Brown. 
See  Brown,  Mrs.  Isabella  (Thompson). 

Thompson.  Mrs.  Ruth  (Brown),  B's  daughter, 
wife  of  Henry  Thompson,  quoted,  16,  73,  74, 
75;  her  carelessness  causes  a  sister's  death, 35; 
19,  20,  36,  76,  591  n.  10.  Letters  from  Jason 
Brown,  229,  B,  324,  Henry  Thompson,  133. 

Thompson,  Seth,  41. 

Thompson,  William,  in  B's  Harper's  Ferry 
party,  414,  419,  437;  taken  prisoner,  439; 
killing  of,  by  Harry  Hunter  and  Chambers, 
described  by  H.  H.,442  and  n.,  491;  his  death 
a  disgrace  to  Virginia  and  condemned  by  best 
public  sentiment,  443;  sketch  of,  683;  537. 

Thompson,  Mrs.  Wm.,  561. 

Thompson  brothers,  sell  land  at  No.  Elba  to  B, 
281. 

Thompson,  Mr.,  B's  partner  in  real-estate  spec 
ulations  in  1835,  27. 

Thomson,  Rev.  Mr.,  and  his  runaway  slave,  14. 

Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  his  Plea  for  Captain  John 

Brown,  quoted,  273,  274,  563. 
Three  Years  on  the  Kansas  Border,  89  n. 
Tidd,  Charles  P.,  in  B's  Harper's  Ferry  party, 
,    414,  4i6,  417,  426,  427,  431,  446,  468;  final 
escape  of,  471;  sketch  of,  68 1;  303,  306,  308, 
3ii.  329,  330,  343,  344.  353.  357.  363,  368, 
379,  406,  468,  574,  577. 


Tieman,  Dan'l  P.,  Mayor  of  New  York,  563. 

Tilden,  Judge  Daniel  R.,  492,  493. 

Timbucto.  See  North  Elba. 

Titus,  "  Fort,"  captured,  after  severe  fighting, 
by  Free  State  men  under  Captain  S.  Walker, 
231,  232. 

Titus,  Col.  H.  T.,  captured  with  his  "  fort  "  by 
Free  State  men,  231,  232;  owed  his  life  to  S. 
Walker,  232,  233;  finally  released  by  Gov. 
Shannon,  233,  234;  352. 

Todd,  Rev.  John,  his  action  on  B's  request  for 
thanksgiving  service  at  Tabor,  384,  385;  267, 
270,  274,  299,  386. 

Toole's,  a  station  on  Underground  Railroad, 
386. 

Toombs,  Robert,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Georgia, 
his  bill  for  taking  census  as  basis  for  election 
of  a  new  constitutional  convention,  passed  by 
Senate,  and  rejected  by  House,  227;  speech 
in  Senate,  565,  566;  191,  226. 

Topeka,  Free  State  conventions  in  (1857),  295, 
296. 

Topeka  Constitution,  ratified  by  the  people, 
107,  127;  its  adoption  angers  pro-slavery 
party,  108;  election  under,  128;  132. 

Topeka  Constitutional  Convention  (Oct.  23, 
1855),  favors  exclusion  of  free  negroes,  as 
well  as  slaves,  but  submits  question  to  the 
people,  105;  constitution  framed  by,  107,  and 
ratified  by  popular  vote,  107,  127;  131,  184. 

Topeka  Free  State  Legislature,  dispersed  by 
Col.  Sumner,  217-220,  meetings  of,  in  1857, 
295;  227,  346,  347. 

Topeka  Tribune,  473. 

Torrey,  Rev.  Charles  T.,  51,  594  n.  13. 

Torrington  (Conn.),  B's  birthplace,  i. 

Toussaint  1'Ouverture,  331. 

Townsend,  James,  of  the  "  Traveller's  Rest," 
312,  316. 

Townsley,  James,  and  the  Pottawatomie  expe 
dition,  151,  152,  153,  154,  155;  tries  to  dis 
suade  B,  157;  and  the  Doyle  murders,  158 
seqq.;  concerning  the  murders  of  Wilkinson 
and  Sherman,  162;  at  Black  Jack,  208;  165, 
166,  167,  175,  177,  178,  184,  198. 

Tracy,  John  F.,  390. 

Traveller's  Rest,  Springdale,  312,  316. 

Tremont  Temple  (Boston),  great  meeting  in,  on 
day  of  B's  execution,  559,  560. 

Tribute  of  Respect,  A,  commemorative  of  the 
Worth  and  Sacrifice  of  John  Brown  of  Osa- 
watomie,  quoted,  559. 

Trimble,  Governor  of  Ohio,  18. 

Trowbridge,  Colonel,  388. 

Truth,  Sojourner,  48. 

Tubman,  Harriet,  colored,  "  the  Moses  of  her 
people,"  327,  396. 

Tucker,  Captain,  233. 

Turner,  Capt.  Geo.  W.,  slave-holder,  effect  of 
killing  of,  440,  441;  sketch  of,  640  n.  33;  469, 
479- 

Turner,  James,  with  Pate  at  Black  Jack,  205. 

Tyndale,  Hector,  549,  550,  558,  561. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  583. 

Underground  Railroad,  Owen  Brown,  senior,  an 

agent  of,  14;  43,  267,  367,  386,  412. 
United  States  Artillery,  ordered  to   Harper's 

Ferry,  449. 
United  States  marines  at  Harper's  Ferry,  449, 

450;  storm  engine  house,  452-454. 
United  States  troops,  criticised  by  Atchison  and 

others,  216,  and  by  Free  State  writers,  217; 

reinforcements  sent  to  Kansas,  251;  ordered 

to  Lawrence  (Sept.  1856),  257. 
Unseld,  John.C.,  B's  conversation  with,  403 ;  404. 
Updegraff,  Captain,  of  Marion  Rifles,  150. 
Updegraff,  H.  Harrison,  121. 
Updegraft.Dr.  Wm.  W.,  lieut.  of  Liberty  Guards; 

121,  240,  243.  245,  293. 


INDEX 


737 


Vaill,  Rev.  H.  L.,  541,  592  n.  16. 

Vallandigham,  C.  L.,  456, 457,  458,  459,  460, 461. 

Vandaman,  S.  V.,  168. 

Varney,  Moses,  and  the  "  Floyd  letter,"  411, 
412;  316. 

Vigilance  Committee  of  52,  of  Kansas,  304. 

Virginia  General  Assembly,  report  of  Joint  In 
vestigating  Com.  of,  500,  567. 

Virginia  militia,  behavior  of,  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
464,  465. 

Volunteer-regulars,  B's  covenant  for  enlist 
ment  of,  66 1  seqq. 

Von  Hoist,  Hermann,  his  John  Brown,  334,  335. 

Voorhees,  Dan'l  W.,  quoted  as  to  B's  trial,  483 ; 
defends  John  E.  Cook,  s?o.  Letter  to  Flor 
ence  Hunter,  485. 

Wadsworth,  Frederick,  27. 

Wadsworth,  Tertius,  37. 

Wager  House,  Harper's  Ferry,  scenes  in,  after 
the  raid,  469,  4?o;  429,  437,  438,  440,  441, 
442,  448. 

Wakarusa  Company,  at  Franklin,  212. 

Wakarusa  River,  116. 

"  Wakarusa  War,"  end  of,  126. 

Wakefleld,  W.  H.  T.,  quoted,  as  to  conditions 
in  Kansas,  1854  to  1858,  601  n.  104. 

Walker,  Jona.,  alias  "  The  Branded  Hand," 
594  n.  13. 

Walker,  Robert  J.,  becomes  governor  of  Kan 
sas,  294;  his  previous  career,  294;  is  opposed 
by  pro-slavery  party  and  Pres.  Buchanan, 
and  resigns,  295;  and  the  election  for  delegate 
to  Congress,  296;  guarantees  free  election, 
296;  306. 

Walker,  Capt.  Samuel,  memoir  of,  89  n.;  mal 
treated,  as  a  Yankee,  in  n.;  statements  of, 
concerning  Robinson's  and  Lane's  connection 
with  Pottawatomie  murders,  184;  rides  from 
Nebraska  City  Kansasward  with  B  and  Lane, 
228;  deems  B  to  have  been  then  insane,  228; 
his  talk  with  B  concerning  the  murders,  228; 
as  to  correspondence  between  B  and  John 
Brown,  Jr.,  228,  229;  commands  Free  State 
forces  at  "  Fort  "  Titus,  231,  232;  saves  Ti- 
tus's  life  after  his  surrender,  232,  233;  his  de 
scription  of  scene  at  Lawrence,  233;  with 
Lane  at  Lecompton,  252.  Letters  to  James 
Hanway,  184,  228,  229. 

Walker  Tariff,  the,  59. 

Walsh,  Hugh  S.,  acting-governor  of  Kansas, 
364.  Letter  to  Lewis  Cass,  364. 

"  Ward,  Artemus,"  his  description  of  B  in 
March,  1859, 392;  and  of  Kagi,  392;  his  report 
of  B's  lecture  in  Cleveland,  392,  393. 

Warren,  Mr.,  creditor  of  Perkins  and  Brown, 
litigation  with,  65,  66. 

Wascott,  Laura,  315. 

Washington,  George.  Pres.  of  U.  S.,  Harper's 
Ferry  arsenal  established  during  his  term, 
428;  his  Lafayette  pistol  and  Frederick  the 
Great  sword,  431. 

-^Washington,  Col.  Lewis  W.,  and  the  historic 
sword  and  pistol,  431;  compelled  to  deliver 
the  sword  to  a  negro,  43 1 ;  made  prisoner,  43 1 ; 
quoted  as  to  B's  bearing  during  siege  of  en 
gine  house,  453;  437,  438,  448,  455,  456,  463, 
467,  468,  487. 

Washington,  Richard  B.,  439. 

Waterloo,  visited  by  B,  62. 

Waters.  R.  P..  281. 

Watertown  (N.  Y.)  Reformer,  167. 
Watson,  Henry,  colored,  412. 
Wattles,  Augustus,  277,  298.  353,  356,  358,  363, 
371,  373.  375,  398,  575,  576.    Letters  to  B,  293, 
300;  from  B,  290,  292. 
Wattles,  Mrs.  Aug.,  371. 
Wattles,  J.  O.,  372. 

Wayland,  Francis,  on  B's  oratory,  281,  282. 
Lttter  to  F.  B.  San  born,  281. 


Weaver,  Capt.  A.  J.,  364,  365. 

Webster,  Col.  Fletcher,  585. 

Weiner,  Theodore,  complains  to  B  of  ill-treat 
ment  by  pro-slavery  men,  151;  in  B's  Potta 
watomie  party,  153-154;  Salmon  Brown's 
description  of,  157,  158;  Wilkinson  and  Sher 
man  killed  by  Thompson  and,  162,  164;  not 
concerned  in  Sherman  murder,  according  to 
Townsley,  162;  was  he  the  mysterious  mes 
senger?  175;  and  Orson  Day,  178;  his  store 
plundered,  200;  155,  159,  177,  198,  210,  211. 

Weiss,  John,  his  Life  and  Correspondence  of 
Theodore  Parker  quoted,  272. 

"  Well-matured  Plan,  The,"  314. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  Stocqueler's  life  of,  53. 

Wells,  Joseph,  37. 

Western  Despatch,  and  the  Pottawatomie  mur 
ders,  189. 

Western  Reporter,  99. 

Western  Reserve  Bank,  suit  of,  against  Brown 
and  others,  37-39. 

Western  Reserve  College,  denies  admission  to  a 
colored  man,  15. 

Westfall,  Dr.,  200. 

Westlands,  B's  curious  manipulation  of,  in 
Western  Reserve  Bank  litigation,  38-41. 

Westport  (Mo.)  Border  Times,  its  sensational 
announcement  of  news  of  Pottawatomie  mur 
ders,  189;  appeals  to  South  for  men  and 
money,  189. 

Wetmore  brothers,  37. 

Wharton,  Lieutenant,  217. 

Whedan,  B.,  13. 

Whelan,  Daniel,  second  prisoner  taken  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  430. 

Whipple,  Charles,  alias  of  Stevens,  224,  365. 
And  see  Stevens,  Aaron  Dwight. 

White,  Horace,  and  G.  Smith's  feigned  insan 
ity,  651  n.  83;  275,  276,  277,  357.  Letter  to  B, 
269. 

White,  Rev.  Martin,  represents  Border  Ruf 
fians  at  settlers'  meeting,  134;  his  report 
thereof  to  Shawnee  Legislature,  134;  as  to 
A.  Wilkinson,  156;  leader  of  band  that  ar 
rested  Jason  Brown,  194  seqq.;  his  house 
raided  by  Free  State  men,  234;  kills  Fred'k 
Brown,  241;  his  own  version  of  the  killing, 
241,  242;  B  declines  to  take  revenge  on  him, 
357,  358;  90,  269,  270.  Letter  to  Bates  County 
Standard,  242. 

Whiteman,  John  S.,  163,  164. 

Whitfield,  Gen.  J.  W.,  pro-slavery  candidate 
for  governor  of  Kansas,  elected  by  fraudulent 
votes,  94;  elected  delegate  to  Congress  at  elec 
tion  ordered  by  Shawnee  Legislature,  106; 
seated  by  the  House  and  ousted  after  report 
of  Howard  Com.,  106,  107  and  n.;  and  Col. 
Sumner,  208,  209;  his  men  pillage  Osawa- 
tomie,  212,  213;  his  election  as  delegate  de 
nied  by  Elections  Com.,  and  by  the  House, 
226;  95,  2ii,  257.  Letter  to  editor  of  Border 
Times,  193. 

Whitman,  Edmund  B.,  B  at  his  house  in  Kansas, 
304;  vexed  at  B's  disappearance,  304;  255, 
277.  294,  305,  307,  359.  Letter  to  G.  L. 
Stearns,  304;  from  H.  B.  Kurd,  360,  G.  L. 
Stearns,  304. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  his  Le  Marais  du  Cygne. 
349- 

Wilberforce  Institute,  327. 

Wilder,  D.  W.,  his  Annals  of  Kansas,  92;  183. 

Wilkinson,  Allen,  member  of  Shawnee  Legisla 
ture,  his  character  from  both  sides,  156,  157; 
his  murder  by  Thompson  and  Weiner  de 
scribed  by  his  wife,  161,  162;  and  the  Morse 
case,  174;  173,  180,  182,  192. 
Wilkinson,  Mrs.  Allen,  quoted,  156,  157,  161, 
162. 

S-ff"?'  ™  P"AG°«-  Of  Indian*'  477,  4«3,  571. 
Willard,  Mrs.  A.  P.,  571. 


738 


INDEX 


Williams,  Henry  H.,  lieutenant  of  Liberty 
Guards,  121;  member  of  Free  State  Legisla 
ture,  133;  lieutenant  in  John  Brown  Jr.'s  com 
pany,  149;  his  story  of  Pottawatomie,  149 
seqq.;  deposes  John,  Jr.  from  command,  150; 
declared  by  Salmon  Brown  to  have  led  in  the 
council  that  decided  on  necessity  of  Pottawat 
omie  massacre,  and  to  have  prepared  list  of 
men  to  be  killed,  152;  secretary  of  public 
meeting  at  Osawatomie,  168;  his  attitude 
toward  Pottawatomie  expedition,  168  and  n., 
169;  his  claim  to  have  been  the  mysterious 
messenger,  175;  166,  177.  Letter  to  C.  A. 
Foster,  133. 

Williams,  J.  M.  S.,  280. 

Williams,  R.  H.,  his  With  the  Border  Ruffians, 
607  n.  100. 

Williams,  William,  249. 

Williams,  William,  the  first  prisoner  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  429,  430,  432. 

Willis,  S.  J.,  575,  576,  580. 

Wilson,  George,  Probate  Judge,  was  he  on  B's 
proscribed  list?  165. 

Wilson,  Henry,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Mass.,  con 
versation  with  B,  399;  317,  318,  340,  342. 
Letter  to  S.  G.  Howe,  339;  from  S.  G.  Howe, 
341. 

Wilson,  Rev.  Norval,  visits  B  in  jail,  544. 

Winchester  Company,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  444. 

Winkley,  Dr.  J.  W.,  his  John  Brown  the  Hero, 
quoted,  237,  238. 

Wise,  Barton  H.,  his  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise, 
quoted,  466,  527,  547- 

Wise,  Henry  A.,  Gov.  of  Virginia,  notified  by 
Garrett  of  attack  on  Harper's  Ferry,  434;  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  444;  quoted  concerning  B, 
455;  his  "  interview  "  withB,455  seqq.;  collo 
quy  with  B,  463;  speech  concerning  behavior 
of  Virginia  militia,  463,  464;  his  later  char 
acterization  of  B,  in  light  of  his  own  capture 
of  the  same  arsenal,  465,  466;  quoted,  468, 
469;  after  the  raid,  469,  470;  and  the  ques 
tion  of  jurisdiction,  477,  478;  receives  much 
contradictory  advice  as  to  his  course,  500 
seqq.;  declines  to  interfere  with  sentence, 
503,  504;  his  message  to  the  legislature,  504, 
505,  517;  weakness  of  his  logic,  506;  the  ques 
tion  of  B's  insanity,  507-509;"  LT  Spooner's 
scheme  to  kidnap,  514;  warned  of  plots  of 
rescue,  518;  warning  letters  received  by  him, 
519;  effect  of  rescue  scares  on  him,  521;  calls 
out  troops,  522;  appeals  to  Pres.  Buchanan,  - 
523;  his  unfounded  fears  of  a  rescue,  524; 
criticized  for  excessive  precautions  taken, 
526;  sustained  by  legislative  committee,  526; 
his  conduct  discussed,  526,  527;  possible  ul 
terior  views  in  display  of  force  at  Charles- 
town,  526,  527;  at  Charlestown,  546;  visits  B 


in  jail,  547,  548;  and  Mrs.  Brown,  549,  SSO 
in  favor  of  leneincy  to  E.  Coppoc,  570;  John 
Minor  Botts  quoted  concerning  649  n.  $c 
164,  293, 472, 474  and  n.,  479,  481,  485,  505  n.t 
528,  554,  559.  56s.  572,  587,  588.  Letters  to 
Mrs.  Mary  A.  Brown,  549,  A.  Hunter,  478, 
504,  521,  F.  Wood,  503;  /romLydia  M.  Child, 
479,  F.  Wood,  502. 

Wise,  John  S.,  his  End  of  an  Era,  quoted, 
474  n. 

Wise,  O.  Jennings,  prefers  charges  against  Col. 
R.  W.  Baylor  for  inefficiency  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  464.  Letter  to  Col.  J.  T.  Gibson,  464. 

Witherspoon,  Rev.  John,  his  works  read  by  B, 
16. 

Wood,  A.  P.,  pursues  B  and  his  band  of  freed 
slaves,  381. 

Wood,  Fernando,  urges  that  B  be  not  hanged, 
502.  Letter  to  Gov.  Wise,  502;  from  Gov. 
Wise,  503. 

Wood,  R.  W.,  sergeant  in  Liberty  Guards,  121. 

Wood,  Sam'l  N.,  leader  of  rescuers  of  Jacob 
Branson,  113;  arrested  by  Sheriff  Jones,  and 
escapes,  140;  indicted  for  treason,  142;  132. 

Wood,  Capt.  Thos.  J.,  his  cruelty  to  Joim 
Brown,  Jr.,  195,  196;  searches  vainly  for  B 
after  Pottawatomie,  196;  later,  a  distin 
guished  Northern  general,  197;  captures 
many  of  Col.  Harvey's  force  after  fight  at 
Hickory  Point,  256;  210. 

Woodruff,  Col.  Daniel,  B  tries  to  obtain  his  co 
operation  in  his  Virginia  project,  54.  55- 

Woodson,  Dan'l,  Sec'y  of  Kansas  Territory, 
his  alleged  letter  to  Gen.  Eastin  denounced  as 
forgery,  116;  acting-governor  of  Kansas,  217; 
Col.  Sumner  and  the  dispersal  of  the  Free 
State  Legislature,  217-220;  his  proclama 
tion,  218,  250,  not  enforced  against  Atchison'3 
and  Reid's  force,  250;  orders  Cooke  to  invest 
Topeka,  250,  251;  252,  257.  Letter  from  Col. 
E.  V.  Sumner,  218. 

Wool-growing,  effect  of  Walker  tariff  on,  59; 
Perkins  and  Brown's  operations  in,  59  seqq. 

"  Words  of  Advice  "  for  the  Gileadites,  50, 
52. 

Workman,  Samuel,  387. 

Wooster  (Ohio),  Bank  of,  sues  B,  37. 

Wright,  S.  H.,  293. 

Wyandotte  City  Western  Argus,  quoted,  370. 

Yankees,  frowned  upon,  merely  as  such,  in 

Kansas,  in. 
Yelton,    John,   brings   warning   of   attack   on 

Osawatomie,  240;  121,  246. 
Young,  Rev.  Joshua,  558  n.,  561,  562. 

Zion  Methodist  Church,  in  Springfield,  Mass., 
attended  by  B,  68. 


NOTE.     This  index  was  compiled  for  the  author  by  Mr.  George  B.  Ives  of  the  Riverside  Press, 
to  whom  the  author  makes  special  acknowledgment  for  his  skill  and  thoroughness. 


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